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.
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.
Outside of antibacterial or germicidal soaps, the cleaning action of washing with soap is 100% mechanical. Soap molecules are asymmetrical and have one side that’s hydrophilic and one side that’s hydrophobic which, when used with water, creates a nifty mechanism that picks up crap on one side and catches a ride on the water molecules with the other side.
Regular soap does also kill bacteria with those hydrophobic sides of its molecules by breaking a bacteria or virus’ lipid membrane. I would argue this still a mechanical process though. Antibacterial soaps use a specific chemical, Triclosan, that binds with enzymes within the bacteria that prevent it from reproducing.
The new generation doesn’t use this bad design anymore. The Dyson Airblade V is just a box with two sharp edges that blows the water right onto your pants and the Airblade Wash+Dry works in a similiar way with a little bit sleeker design. Both of them have hepa filters too, so from a hygienic standpoint they are much better than their old airblades and the clones that filled the market.
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.
I don’t know what’s Your point. You can get hit by doors no mater which way they open. And it’s not like the doors from a supermarket open straight on to a busy sidewalk. Don’t You have fire safety code, wherever You’re from?
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cool background and understandable how that came to be. It is also important to get some exposure to the “bad” germs but that is a hard balance so I just see toilet areas as a big no no.
In addition, I find that a stunning number of folks are okay with either simply rinsing their hands with only water, or not washing their hands at all. Disgusting.
I often don’t shake people’s hands, or at least sanitize after shaking hands because I don’t know who washes up after using the restroom and who has shit on their hands.
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:
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.
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