Water scarcity is no longer a future risk, it is a present-day operational challenge for buildings across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and Southern Africa. From drought conditions in England, due to low 2025 rainfall, to chronic water stress in South Africa, organisations are under growing pressure to reduce consumption, cut operating costs, and demonstrate measurable ESG performance. One area continues to be overlooked despite its outsized impact: toilets.
Toilets remain the single largest controllable use of water in most commercial, public, and high-footfall buildings. Yet many facilities still rely on legacy 6 to 13 litre flush systems installed decades ago. In this article, we show you the facts of how Propelair replaced outdated toilets with ultra-low-flush technology that delivered measurable and verifiable, immediate, water, carbon, and cost savings, while improving hygiene, reliability, and user experience. Don’t take our word for it: Propelair’s impact is not theoretical. It is demonstrated across hundreds of live installations globally, spanning retail, healthcare, education, utilities, offices, and off-grid sites.
Action point for facility managers: Audit your building’s flush volumes. If your toilets flushes at 6 or more litres, it is likely your single largest and avoidable water cost.
Why toilets are the biggest hidden water risk
In commercial and public buildings, toilet flushing typically accounts for 40 to 50% of total water consumption. High-occupancy environments such as shopping centres, offices, hospitals, and universities amplify this impact dramatically. A single inefficient toilet, flushed dozens of times per day, can waste hundreds of thousands of litres every year.
Beyond water, inefficient toilets drive additional hidden costs. Higher water usage increases carbon emissions linked to water treatment and pumping. Frequent blockages, downtime, and callouts raise maintenance costs. Poor hygiene and odour control negatively affect user experience, particularly in sensitive environments such as healthcare and education, and off-grid sites suffers from high tank emptying costs and its’ associated environmental footprint. Propelair was designed to address these interconnected challenges with a data-led, retrofit-ready solution that replaces high flush volumes with powerful air-assisted performance.
Action point for facility managers: Calculate how much water one toilet uses, here to reveal annual waste.
Proven results across real buildings
Propelair’s impact is not theoretical. It is demonstrated across hundreds of live installations globally, spanning retail, healthcare, education, utilities, offices, and off-grid sites.
Retail and shopping centres
Large retail environments experience extreme peak usage, making water efficiency critical. Recent mall installations with two prominent property groups in Southern Africa have achieved 83 to 87% reductions in toilet water consumption, saving between 22 and 32 million litres of water per site annually. These savings translate into multi-million-rand reductions in water costs, short payback periods, and improved resilience against municipal supply constraints.
See the real results, explore our verified Propelair case studies.
| Healthcare and education
In highly sensitive hospitals, hygiene and reliability are as important as water efficiency. Propelair help these environments benefit from improved infection control through reduced airborne germs, due to our close-to-flush technology, supporting safer conditions for patients and staff alike.
Installations in universities and healthcare environments have also helped eliminate daily blockages and reduced odours Education campuses have achieved water savings of up to 90% while improving washroom performance for students, staff, and visitors.
See the real results, explore our verified Propelair case studies
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National utilities and infrastructure leaders
Perhaps most telling is adoption by Water Utilities themselves. At its headquarters in Reading, Thames Water installed Propelair toilets in 2015, a full decade before England’s current drought conditions. The toilets remain fully operational today, delivering consistent water savings and demonstrating how early investment in demand reduction builds long-term resilience. By leading by example, utilities can influence commercial and domestic customers to adopt proven water-saving technologies.
See the real results, explore our verified Propelair case studies.
| Off-grid and remote sites
Many off-grid locations are not connected to main sewer networks — including holiday parks, camping and glamping sites, petrol stations, ships, and remote facilities — where wastewater handling and tank emptying are costly and disruptive and costly. Propelair’s ultra-low-flush toilets use just 1.5 litres per flush, significantly reducing how often tanks must be emptied and cutting ongoing operational expense. In one case, a major global oil and gas operator reduced cesspit emptying from weekly to monthly, saving £1,200 per month. Propelair installations at off-grid sites also deliver 75% water savings, 85,410 litres saved annually, and improved hygiene with up to 95% fewer airborne germs, making them ideal where reliability, hygiene, and cost control are crucial.
See the real results, explore our verified Propelair case studies.
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Action point for facility managers: Benchmark your building against similar sites. If those sites are achieving 80–90% reductions, your building likely can too.
More than water – The benefits facilities teams care about
While water savings often initiate the conversation, facilities teams quickly recognise the broader operational value of Propelair installations:
- Reduced blockages and emergency plumbing callouts in high-use environments
- Faster maintenance through dry-flush capability, reducing maintenance callouts and costs
- Improved hygiene performance through close-to-flush-technology
- Significant reduction in washroom odours
- Better user experience with reliable, one-flush performance
- Retrofit-ready installation without major plumbing disruption
- Accurate measurement of water, carbon, and cost savings for reporting
These benefits are particularly valuable in buildings where downtime, hygiene issues, or reputational risk carry high consequences.
Action point for facility managers: Log washroom pain points over 30 days. Track blockages, callouts, downtime, odours, and complaints, these hidden costs often exceed water bills.
From single buildings to portfolio-wide impact
The strongest evidence of Propelair’s scalability comes from large property portfolios. One flagship real estate group in South Africa has installed more than 2,600 Propelair toilets across 49 office and retail buildings, delivering projected annual water savings of 287 million litres. Since 2022, this has translated into more than R15 million in year-on-year water cost savings and a portfolio-wide return on investment of 21%.
Beyond operating savings, independent studies confirmed increased asset value linked to reduced reliance on municipal water. This demonstrates how water efficiency upgrades can enhance both sustainability performance and long-term asset resilience.
Action point for facility managers: Pilot Propelair 1.3lt water-efficient toilets in one high-usage building and use real data to build a scalable business case for portfolio rollout.
Curious about exponential savings? Book your call out nowWho should be considering Propelair now
Propelair is already delivering results for:
- Property owners and Real Estate Investment Trusts seeking portfolio-wide efficiency
- Facility and Estates Managers under pressure to cut costs
- ESG and Sustainability leaders needing measurable outcomes
- Developers and Refurbishment teams upgrading legacy buildings
- Utilities and Off-grid operators managing water scarcity risk
Final thoughts: From hospitals to shopping centres, universities to utilities, Propelair is proving that toilets are one of the fastest, most cost-effective ways to reduce water use, carbon impact, and operational risk in buildings. With verified results across hundreds of live installations, ultra-low-flush technology is no longer an innovation, it is an essential infrastructure upgrade.
About Propelair
Propelair is an international cleantech company delivering data-enabled, water-saving washroom solutions that help commercial and public organisations reduce water consumption, lower operating costs, enhance sustainability, improve hygiene, and enable smarter washroom management. www.propelair.com | moc.rialeporp@ofni
