I find there’s three types of hand dryers: the standard kind that blows really hot air to evaporate the water, the ones that blow strongly to push the water off the hands, and the ones that are supposed to do one of these but don’t. At my university almost all of the hand dryers fall into the third category.
Why are hand dryers like this, and am I somehow drying my hands wrong?
They’re all heated. The high flow ones just feel cold because they’re evaporating the water faster than it can put heat into your hands. If you hang out an extra 10 seconds with good technique, it’ll be warm.
Are any perfect? Probably not. I don’t have the patience for them and utilize my pants to finish the job. But, some basic understanding goes a long way.
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Drying starts at the sink. Give some good shakes there. You can use your hands to squeegee the other there as well.
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Rub your hands in the drier, vigorously and thoroughly. You need to spread the water thin to speed evaporation. Letting it stay pooled in droplets will only lead to the droplets re-wetting the dry parts as soon as they move. It also helps put your wetter parts on your drier parts, further maximizing your wet surface area.
2a. For the high speed ones, move your hands so it works it’s way from your wrists to your fingertips. This will help fling water off your hands.
- I’m still gonna pat dry on my pants because I can’t waste the extra 10 seconds with all that white noise, but it’s a lot less than how it started. I could do a handshake by time I step out. I call it quits when the air doesn’t feel cold anymore.
Low speed drivers still won’t be worth my time. Again, I promise, I’m wearing pants, and I’ll use them.
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If the sensor is borked, and the air keeps shutting off, just skip.
Wall-mounted frustration unit.
Mostly they send the bacteria on your hands flying.
Why is there bacteria on your hands after you just washed them and rinsed with clean water?
It’s actually the opposite- the issue is they shoot bacteria onto your newly cleaned hands.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823
Well, if you scrub your hands thoroughly with a lot of soap for at least 30 seconds it could work. Last time I saw anyone doing that was in 2021 during corona hehehe.
Given the issue is fixed by putting HEPA filters on the intake of the dryers, it indicates the bacteria is coming from the air in the bathroom, not wet hands.
Here some sources about different systems and causes. Anyway , I always use paper ;-) https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823 And https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-paper-towels-hygiene-dyson-airblade
That Harvard article is what I linked above. It’s where I found that the HEPA filter on the intake works well to reduce bacterial spread.
You can’t expect me to read all the answers in a tread hehehe.
You gave the article a good and proper skim reading! Anything more in-depth is overkill. You got the gist of it that’s enough lol
plus all that mold you see growing where the air is blowing to.
They just don’t work well. There’s no technique
Fair, good to know I’m not misguided in my hand dryer usage
I once found a random food court bathroom that has hand dryers that work amazingly well, and I was genuinely surprised by that when I stumbled on it. I’m guessing it probably is just more expensive or uses more power or something and places cheap out on them.
I’d like to dispute that. My current routine is:
- Shake hands around 12 times
- Rub hands under the dryer.
Step 1 removes majority of the water and Step 2 spreads it evenly over your hands so you use all the surface area to dry. I get my hands completely dry within a minute.
These are known not to be sanitary, so I just let my hands air dry if there are no towels
How are they unsanitary?
The theory is that they aerosolize the water and whatever was on your hands, but if you did a decent job cleaning them, it’s not really a problem.
I think it’s because they vacuum air from a public restroom and blow it all over your hands.
1: most people don’t do a decent job
2: how often do you think those filters get cleaned?
3: splattering tap water all over is also bad hygienic practice
They’re banned in the good hospitals for a reason.
Someone else linked this in their comment but the air in those dryers has to come from somewhere… if it’s coming from the bathroom, where there are no lids on the toilets and aerosolized poop particles are sucked into the dryer and right onto your hands, I would lean towards that being unsanitary. This is also why it’s important to put the lid down before you flush at home, to avoid all those particles floating around onto anything exposed in your bathroom, like maybe your toothbrush or towels.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823
Wow. TIL. Thanks for the info.
What gets me is the ones that you should be wearing ear protection when using. Some of them are ridiculously loud, I’ve come out of the can with my ears ringing afterwards.
Wipe your hands in your clothes/ a tissue
This is the answer! Those things are havens for all sorts of mold and bacteria!
Aren’t the bacteria airblasters way worse anyway?
That’s exactly what I’m saying.
Oh I thought that you were being sarcastic about my comment
Yeah, people tell me I come off strangely. But I assure you I’m just a little tistic and not mean spirited.
It’s the rubbing-your-hands part. If you do it right you get the wet under the air in frequent enough intervals that your hands get pretty dry.
Dry enough that they’d finish on their own in the next 60 seconds. But since I’m out the door by then I’ve already wiped the rest on my shirt.
This is the answer. If you flick as much water off your hands as possible into the sink first, it takes like 10 seconds
Yeah, you should shake off the water first (12 times is a good number), then rub your hands to spread the water over your hands so your evaporating water on all parts of your hands.
Takes less than a minute and gives you completely dry hands. This works with type 1 and 3 mentioned by you. Type 2 like the Dyson Airblade work if you pull your hands through slowly but then they will take a couple of minutes to dry on their own. With type 2 shaking the water off is not important since the machine does it for you.
Very regional.
In areas with high humidity they don’t work all that well
Grandpa taught me this as a child. Shake hell out of your hands in the sink. (This TED Talk caught some laughs, but he’s demonstrating how useful memes can spread.)
Shake dry, hit the dryer. Spread your fingers wide, rub vigorously, flipping one side to the other and in between your fingers. The idea is to splat the water droplets, break their surface tension, flatten them out. You can get dry in 15-20 seconds.
I can get them pretty close to dry. Try to shake some of the water into the sink before you dry. That helps a lot.
- Shake hands thoroughly after washing to minimise excess water.
- Move hands together as if you’re applying soap while using the dryer. This keeps the water evenly distributed on your hands, to maximise evaporation.
they actually promote mold growth, when they blowing your hands on to the walls. not as good as wiping with towels.
Has your university not bothered to replace the old shitty models with the newer, actually effective models? I always think the Dyson AirBlade works really well.
I agree, it’s the one model that works consistently well. All the old buildings have weak lukewarm ones.
