Has anyone else noticed the level of grime accumulating on dyson airblades in public bathrooms? The design blows the water from your hands all over the base of the machine where it pools and degrades the plastic casing. Even in the updated design for the smaller, wall mounted airblade V, the water blows all over the floor and walls making quite a mess.
I initially thought the airblade was a great way to dry your hands quickly without using reams and reams of paper towel but with these machines potentially having to be replaced due the mess they make, are they really doing any good?
I have never liked electric hand dryers but I now refuse to use them since I read an article regarding the bacteria they can spread as per my post elsewhere on this website.
Drying my hands without touching the machine. It might be OK for small hands, but with the air turbulence it is almost impossible for me not to come into contact with the machine. Germs!!!
Vertical water spray. I wear glasses and inevitably they blow water up onto my lenses which I detest. Then I have to dry the wet globs off. So I might as well have just wiped my hands on paper towels.
Crowding. I have been in bathrooms where they have two or more of these beasties lined up side by side in close proximity. It is not pleasant to be receiving the water spray from the person next to you, especially if you are nearly finished drying. Has that person actually washed their hands properly with soap I wonder??
Now, I donât use the airblade if paper towels are available.
Personally Iâve always found them far more effective than any other dryer or even using terrible 1 ply paper towel. I feel like the issue with grime building up could be fixed with a few design tweaks or a hydrophobic coating
Itâs a pity that we no longer have Roache hand dryers being manufactured in Australia. These are a very quiet model, and although the airflow rate is low, the speed of hand drying is fast. I reckon that one of these would have a good chance of beating Dysonâs âfastestâ claim.
They were good onesâŠbut looks like they might not be, from an hygiene virpewpoint, much better than the DysonâŠ
I have also noticed some high airflow alternatives to Dyson in some toilets. The ones I can recall are made from stainless but still are difficult to use without the hands being blown onto the inside of the unit.
From the Harvard article: You should still dry your hands, as not drying them after washing them helps bacteria to survive on them
I see many men using the Dyson driers for a very short time and then walking off. I doubt that their hands are dry. With the Roache driers, I could always feel my hands drying rapidly as the water evaporated. The Dyson ( and other âjetâ ) driers seem to take longer to displace the water.
Although paper towels are chemically treated and not able to be recycled, and need an assistant to replenish dispenser and to empty the bin, I think itâs a more hygienic way of drying hands than the air jets. Maybe those you put your hands âunderâ are more desirable.
More and more we are not given a choice in public bathrooms.
I also always use a tissue to operate the cubicle latch and main door.
In public toilets/bathrooms I almost always use my own clothes, pants or shirt or both, to dry my hands. I know where theyâve been and who has touched them, unlike everything in the public room!
In my own home where things are clean (or maybe more accurately, the bugs are familiar to my body defences) then yes, soap - in a public place where these things generally are? especially the public places around where I live, the soap looks nasty and probably holds more bad stuff than it removes
Mentioned above is the blow back spray landing on glasses, I would expect the spray around the air intakes (nose and mouth) can also provide a path for microbes into the body.
All man made devices require some cleaning and maintenance. I find the product to be fast and hygienic. Obviously people have not seen hundreds of used paper towels overflowing from a tiny bin which to me is âgrossâ . Quite often I have seen dozens of unused paper towels fallen on the floor because people have pulled one from the dispenser and probably inadvertently pulled out many. Or sometimes the paper towels are taken for other uses leaving none for the intended use.
I am amazed general internet photos are posted by Choice staff so here is mine.
I really donât like hand dryers, Dyson or not. You can dry your hands with one paper towel. I am mostly annoyed at the noise they make and can only imagine how people with noise sensitivities must feel. And the Airblades, as @ajohnson points out, just blows and pools water. The new Dyson tap/dryer combo style (pictured) is really awkward to use and completely unintuitive, but at least the water goes down the sink.
) or just plain gross (
)?
