Touchless smart faucets with automatic flushing land at Berlin’s new airport

Set to become one of Germany’s busiest transport hubs, the recently inaugurated Berlin Brandenburg Airport BER is located in Schönefeld, south of the city. With plans to further expand by 2035 and accommodate up to 58 million passengers per year, the airport is undergoing major renovation and construction – and working to ensure the highest hygiene standards.

© Flughafen Berlin Brandenburg GmbH / Günter Wicker

The challenge: Reducing stagnation in the drinking water network

With millions of passengers expected to travel through Berlin Brandenburg each year, facility manager Eiko Werth came up with a solution: equip the airport’s 200 sanitary rooms with touchless faucets that flush automatically.

“We needed to reduce stagnation in the drinking water network as much as possible, and it was important for the process to be automatic,” Werth explains.

Unlike the old fixtures, which required manual flushing to keep the installation clean, smart faucets with automatic flushing can reduce stagnation in the drinking water network and ensure compliance with drinking water hygiene requirements.

Much like an autopilot makes adjustments based on external factors to ensure a plane arrives smoothly at its destination, smart faucets enable adjustments to the frequency of the automatic flushing based on use over time — ensuring maximum hygiene and longevity in the system.

HANSAELECTRA wall-mounted touchless faucet installed in Berlin airport.

The solution: Choosing the right smart faucets for optimized automatic flushing

Bringing over 25 years of experience, HANSA sales representative Uwe Hetzschold worked with the facility management at Berlin Brandenburg to understand the solutions HANSA faucets could provide. And after comparing faucets from several manufactures, the team picked high-performing HANSAELECTRA fixtures. Unlike other touchless faucets, HANSAELECTRA are equipped with Bluetooth technology, which can help prevent stagnation in drinking water systems through automatic flushing.

 With clearance given to HANSA, 250 touchless HANSAELECTRA 64432219 with Bluetooth functionality were installed in the sanitary rooms of the new Terminal 1. A further 15 wall-mounted HANSAELECTRA 00880010 were installed during the renovation of the former Schönefeld airport, now Berlin Brandenburg’s Terminal 5.

Speaking of the installation process, Eiko Wert mentioned an initial hurdle caused by the insufficient tap hole size in the barrier-free toilets. Nevertheless, the team at Berlin Brandenburg were able to complete the installation of the 250 HANSA faucets within 6 weeks. Here, the Hansa Connect app, which works with the faucet’s integrated Bluetooth technology, helped with the programming, as flushing programs could be saved individually and transferred to the faucets.

  HANSAELECTRA touchless washbasin faucet with Bluetooth in Terminal 1

The result: Hygienic, automatic flushing systems in sanitary rooms

 The arrival of touchless faucets that perform automatic flushing paved the way to an hygienic and efficient water system. The faucets’ touchless technology will help Berlin’s new transport hub save water and improve hygiene, as it prepares to welcome passengers in a post-pandemic world.

Along with being theft- and vandal-proof, the faucets are quick and easy to clean, further elevating hygiene standards while saving time and money in an industry that has no time for delays.