Garry Moore patented a ‘displaced-air’ principle for toilet flushing (to save water) back in 1998 and founded Propelair Ltd in 2001 to develop the technology into a product for the commercial washroom market. He worked with Gary Rose and William McLaughlin on the design and production programme and Propelair was launched in 2013.

Fast-forward to 2020 and the first COVID-19 lockdown was in place with everyone working from home. Garry was home-schooling his two children while his wife worked remotely from the spare room. As this settled into a long-term routine, Garry realised that people and businesses all over the country were investing such significant resources into being able to work from home that he might be witnessing a social shift whereby people would never go back to working from an office to the extent they had done before, and the housing market remained buoyant throughout 2020 to reflect this.

Garry knew that if people were spending less time in the office, water use in the home would increase, yet there was not an air-flush toilet suitable for saving water in the home. Having left Propelair in 2018, and with his ‘displaced-air’ patent expiring the year after, Garry realised that it was the perfect opportunity to explore whether an air-flush toilet was feasible for the domestic home market, so he called Gary Rose and William McLaughlin to see what they thought. Everyone was very excited and up for the challenge, so together they set up a remote technical working group to look into it in more detail and, by using a combination of video conferencing and virtual focus groups, they were able to prepare a project brief and set about developing their ideas into a product, which they named Velocity^®.

While the Propelair design had worked well and saved a lot of water (requiring only 1.5 litres of water per flush), the equipment was larger than that of a conventional toilet with the cistern mounted away from the pan behind removable panelling, so it was not suitable as a replacement for the close-coupled toilets in houses, and users also had to touch the lid during use, so these were the key areas the team wanted to explore.

There was quite a lot written during lockdown about how remote working negatively impacted companies’ ability to innovate, with design teams unable to ‘bounce’ ideas off of each other to achieve evolutionary changes. But the Velocity team found the lockdown to be a very positive and productive experience with their small multi-disciplinary team able to come up with some very revolutionary ideas (and generate new IPR) by having technical empathy with each other (and with the design process) and having the autonomy to work alone without a formal reporting structure, which enabled them to develop novel solutions to both designing an air pump compact enough to fit inside a conventional close-coupled cistern size (while also reducing the flush volume to 1.4 litres of water) and a system of opening and closing the lid and locking it in the closed position (to allow air flushing to work) from an infrared sensor so the user doesn’t have to touch anything.

The team also looked at simplifying the manufacturing process to address limitations and complications with the ceramic production process, and their combined in-house R&D capability meant that during lockdown they were able to produce concept models and working prototypes to try out their ideas and get feedback from users by holding a focus group at a bathroom showroom as soon as the first lockdown was lifted. The feedback was excellent and encouraged the team to develop a hand basin to complement the WC, as part of an expanding product range.

With home working set to remain a part of our lives for a long time to come, the team are now looking forward to moving Velocity® on to the next stage of its journey out of lockdown and into people’s homes.

Garry worked closely with ARUP and the Water Research Centre (WRc) during  the Propelair development programme around 2007, and was delighted to return to their collaborative networking group 'Wet Networks' in 2023 to update them on his continued journey to take displaced-air flushing toilets into the domestic market with Velocity. The video of his presentation 'From Propelair To Velocity: The Evolution Of Air Flush Toilets' is shown above.

Following his re-engagement with ARUP and WRc, Garry was invited by the Future Homes Hub to join their Expert Water Group for the creation of DEFRA's new Water Sustainability Roadmap, which supports the Government's Environmental Improvement Plan 2023. The Roadmap has particular emphasis on delivering greater water efficiency for new developments through  reductions in daily water use from its current  level of 141 litres per person per day (LPPPD) by reusing greywater & rainwater, and the adoption of super-efficient fittings, with Velocity included as enabling the lowest target of 75LPPPD to be delivered without reusing water, which will give substantial financial and infrastructure  benefits to homebuilders.

Focus Group Feedback

"New Lofts has been providing loft conversions and extensions to home-owners throughout Essex since 2005 and we’re always looking out for new products that give our customers benefits or help how we design our home conversions. I looked at the Propelair toilet a few years ago as I was interested in how it saved water and could be installed on flexible pipes, but it wasn’t suitable for home bathrooms as it was quite industrial looking and needed a cupboard to put the equipment, and space is always at a premium on home conversions. Since COVID-19 came along last year, we have never been busier with people working from home and wanting additional space to live and work in, and usually needing additional bathrooms too. So, I was very interested to see the new Velocity WC which has been designed especially for domestic bathrooms. It saves even more water and looks really good, and you don’t have to touch the lid when you use it. Having the cistern the same size and position as a normal toilet also means we don’t need any extra space and the flexible pipes mean we can put them anywhere and we’re not restricted by where the drains are. I really like the matching basin too; it gives the suite a nice modern progressive look and I think our customers will really like the styling, so it’s certainly something that I will be recommending to our customers in future”.

Andy Wilson, Director, New Lofts Ltd, Southend-on-sea, Essex­­­­­­­­­­­­­