École Robert Magnin · Neuvecelle
Children wash their hands better — and the school uses 22% less water
At a glance
Client: École Robert Magnin, Neuvecelle
Site: Kindergarten (10 points) and elementary school (17 points)
Instrumented: Faucets, urinals and toilets
Kit: iLinks with Flow & Temperature sensors, 2 awareness screens
Period: Pilot in 2020 at Vivalys school (Ecublens), continuous data at Neuvecelle Jan. 2023 – Sept. 2026 (296 m³ over 45 months)
The challenge
After the COVID crisis the school wanted children to keep good hand-washing habits without wasting water. The main meter said how much water was used — never where, when or why.
What we installed
- iLink — 27 water points across both schools
- Flow & Temperature — Hand-wash time, hot/cold mix, flush cycles
- Awareness screen × 2 — Hygiene score and litres, live in each hall
Alarms that did the work
- Out-of-hours flow · Warning — out_of_hours_flow · opening hours set per building
- Potential water leak · Warning — continuous_flow · micro-leaks below the flow threshold need a closer look
What the data showed
Phantom use in an empty school
About 0.2 L a day from 1 to 17 August with nobody inside, plus 6 peaks of 0.5–0.8 L: a persistent micro-leak and a fixture that triggers by itself.
Two toilets over-consuming
Toilets no. 8 and 14 stand out; 419 night cycles or ghost flushes counted in 2026.
5.5% outside opening hours
2,934 L of 53,425 L in 2026 — 96% of it on the elementary side.
September 2026 to qualify
16.7 m³, the highest month of the series, about 2,400 L of it outside opening hours.
Results
- Yearly water use: −22% — After two years of operation
- January–July 2024 vs 2023: −36% — Same period, 61.3 → 39.1 m³
- School years since 2023–24: +5% / year — Driven by the school starts — gains need follow-up
- Hand-hygiene score: 4/10 → ≈ 10/10 — 10/10 = two hand washes with a soap pause per flush
- Average monthly use: 6.4 m³ — 296 m³ over 45 months
Nadine Wendling, Mayor of Neuvecelle, on the Droople solution — Go Solutions, season 4, episode 6 (Léman Bleu)
The takeaway
A water-saving gain only lasts if someone looks at the data and acts on it.
Droople “Neuvecelle Project” study (first two years of operation); Droople dashboard readings, ±3% (296.4 m³ checked against 295.9 m³ displayed). Pilot started in 2020 at Vivalys school.