I hate those stupid air dryers. Most of them barely do any better than just shaking your hands in the air, because they’re simply spraying your clean hands with all of the shit and piss particles that are floating in the air.
Would rather have some cheap paper towels so I can dry my hands, and use the towel to open the door before throwing it in the trash.
Additionally, my understanding is that a lot of the cleaning done by washing your hands is mechanical, and using a paper towel with a slightly rough and absorbent surface scrapes off all the stuff that has been loosened by washing with soap and water.
Most of them barely do any better than just shaking your hands in the air,
I saw one of these once where someone scratched "4. wipe hands on pants" on the instruction panel.
The trick is to shake dry in the sink, then rub the moisture up past your wrists onto your forearms, creating a thin layer. Then use the dryer, repeating the rubbing motion spreading the moisture out until it's gone.
because they’re simply spraying your clean hands with all of the shit and piss particles that are floating in the air.
Those foot pull hooks are useful, but I have yet to figure out how to get out the door without an awkward shuffle step or downright stumble as I pull the door open.
As long as there's paper towels you can lather, wash, dry with a clean paper towel, and then use that to turn off the faucet/open the door without touching them. It sounds germophobic, but it really is the best way for us to use public restrooms and protect each others' health.
My understanding (which may be false) is that this can come about from competing design considerations and regulations. Like... It's ideal to be able to push the door open from the inside of the bathroom so you don't have to touch a nasty doorhandle, but you also don't want somebody to be able to put something in front of the door, potentially trapping you in the bathroom (particularly in the event of a fire... Dying in a fire is probably worse than touching a nasty doorhandle), and you also don't want doors to unexpectedly swing open into busy hallways. This drives me nuts too, though.
Eh, there's an easy solution that a lot of places are starting to use. A foot pull. Probably costs $5-10. No real excuse for any place not installing these.
Don't think you need it that much. You're going to wash your hands after. There's a small chance you could contract something before using the bathroom from it, unsure on the likelihood of that transmission.
I don’t like those mechanical/timer ones. Especially the ones with a push button top, always felt like I had to smack the button several times just to get twenty seconds of water.
My favourite is the kind of S curve that some places have, so you just walk in, but it's private enough that people can't just leer from the hallway or whatever I'm not actually sure what we're accomplishing with doors here unless it's a very tight space I guess like if the bathroom is near the area where patrons eat at a resto? Yeah I get that, door away. Sorry for rambling.
I worked in an office that had the S curve bathroom and I do not recommend it. People who sat on that side of the floor got to hear the air dryer every time someone used the bathroom. Also, the smells... Automatic door openers are the answer.
I went to college the S curves, as well as one office briefly before the pandemic, but they were both off the "main drag" by a bit. Like along a hallway that didn't have people just sitting nearby.
Sometimes a trash bin is located near the door, so I'll use the same paper towel I used to dry my hands to open the door, hold the door open with my foot, then throw the paper towel in the bin. But these make hygiene so much easier:
A hobby of mine is to get annoyed at hand dryers. 80% of the models I find are eyerollingly useless. Blow a faint breeze for five seconds, stop and refuse to trigger again no matter how much you try to slap the air in front of it.
Then there are those 5% that actually gets it. Blowing a jet stream that makes the water droplets sublimate so fast you forget you even washed.
I keep thinking it'd be a good idea to patent a hand dryer that points the detector in one direction and the blower in another, such that to switch it on you have to move your hands out of the air stream, and to switch it off you have to move your hands into it. Your hands get dry not by the blower, but by the action of moving your hands to and fro between the detector and the blower.
Nobody would object or claim prior art because that would put them on record as directly admitting their products are shit.
Then sue everyone whose hand dryers do exactly that. I'd make a killing.
I don't like the sleeve method. Grime just hangs out on your sleeves and then gets deep in the fibers. No thank you. I use my pinky and ring fingers when I absolutely have to.
Yeah, I just ran ino this for the first time a few days ago by coincidence. I guess it works and makes sense. A little awkward and won't work for everyone, but maybe the best solution
The shopping mall where I live has the metal stripe at the bottom that's clearly there to protect the door when you open it with your shoe... But they open inwards to the bathroom.
There is a lot of fear-mongering and misinformation about paper towels vs air dryers. Paper towels are marginally more hygienic because air dryers spray the particles off your hand into the air. Neither are a good option if you don’t wash your hands well to begin with.
I grab it with the edge of my shirt. While it's not ideal, my shirt will be washed later and it spares me having to deal with risk of fecal particles on my hands where they can immediately reach my face.
Because it's an extra expense, not just to install but to maintain. They put them on the exterior door because it lets people in faster and easier (more customers) and is easier to haul out your purchases when you leave so you are encouraged to buy things without thinking as much about logistics. Bathroom doors being automated vs manual is almost never going to affect sales.
The correct way to handle this would be to use a disposable paper product. Most places still have a paper towel dispenser along side the air hand dryer, you're supposed to use that.
Besides the point, most people don't know how to properly wash and dry their hands. There's a technique to both that actually improves cleanliness a lot and reduces overall waste.
I never use air based hand dryers. Paper towel for life. Some places use maze patterns instead of doors, which I generally like but usually requires some extra work with air handling to make sure the bathroom air stays in the bathroom, and a bit more floor space to provide the room for the maze pattern. Those restrooms are usually the ones without paper towel, I don't mind, I just have moist hands for a few minutes afterwards.
All of this can be googled. So I won't go into more detail, but the majority of people couldn't possibly give fewer fucks about handwashing or hand drying properly. So I expect most won't even try to learn how to do things better, ever. They just go with whatever their parents taught them as a child and never question it again. Bluntly, your parents probably did the same, so you're probably working off of 50+ year old advice on hand washing.
Yes, yes and yes. Do you also do laboratory work? Ive always found these hygiene important but, now i notice how nasty all things get since ive started doing lab work and especially when working with diseases
Nope, I'm an IT guy with a nurse for a wife. I've taken first aid (including proper handwashing) for about 30 years being a member of St. John's ambulance for a long time in there.
It's been beaten over my head for most of my life. Looking into it, the rabbit hole goes deeper. I also found a TED style talk (may have been TEDx? I forget) talking about the best way to dry your hands while using as few paper towels as possible.
I know I've only really scratched the surface with what I could know on the topic. I also understand that there's helpful "germs" on your skin, and over washing or over use of hand sanitizer can be detrimental to skin health and long term health; of course with a huge number of caveats that are just so far outside of the scope of what I'm trying to say.
Looping back on topic, I'm a science nerd, first-aid trained, very curious and knowledge seeking individual with a large exposure to medical people. Hygiene is very important.
I just use my shirt tail or sleeve, haven't opened a door with my.bare hand since February 2020. (Yes I do realize COVID isn't spread by touching really but if it's one less risk I can take along with masking I will do it).
Ha! Amateur! I haven't opened a toilet door with bare hands since the time they wrote a "19" at the beginning of the year. Git gud! (I'm not entirely sure, but could actually be true)
Yes. It's one of the biggest vectors for contagions. But since disease takes a while to become evident, most people don't associate their sickness with the actual source of transmission.
Bathroom doors specifically, not just doors in general? Edit: I looked it up and I guess it's about bacteria like E. Coli, that makes sense. It's weird, because people on Reddit/Lemmy always talk about using these tricks to avoid touching things, but IRL I've never seen anyone do it or heard anynone talk about it
This stuff is illegal in some countries.
Do NOT use your sleeve unless you plan to wash your sweater immediately after. Carry an emergency napkin/paper towel with you.