Monday, September 18, 2006

Monday Rant: Hand Dryers

Many washrooms in institutions (schools, government edifices, large corporations) are equiped with hot-air blow dryers for the purpose of drying one's hands after washing. I actually like the concept, since paper towels inevitably lead to both lamentable waste and overflowing garbage cans.

Simply having such a device present is insufficient, however. There are issues of positioning, quantity, and air-flow characteristics to be considered, all issues that the people who construct men's rooms seem unaware of.

Positioning: Here at SFU, in the Biological Sciences department, there is a men's room with the sole dryer placed next to one of the urinals. If a man pees at that particular urinal, the automatic, motion-sensing blow dryer will run for the duration of his visit, and it becomes impossible for anyone else to dry their hands. This is fucking stupid - who built that?

Quantity: Question: if you place 4 sinks in a washroom, how many dryers should you put in? I'm going to go with at least THREE, rather than the ONE common in many 4-sink washrooms around here. Is there no expectation of a correlation between WETTING hands and DRYING hands?

Volume: Blow dryers work by BLOWING AIR. There are many pathetically feeble dryers about campus here (and elsewhere) that emit a lame, barely-detectable puff of air. This is supposed to speed evaporation from skin how, exactly?

Temperature: Air will hold more dissolved water at higher temperatures - so why do so many blow dryers produce air at the same temperature as the rest of the room? Gimme some heat, here, man!

Perhaps, somewhere, a person with restroom-construction-and-layout responsibilities will read this, and take heed. Until then, I need something to sop the water out of my keyboard.

7 comments:

TheBrummell said...

OK, I followed the above link, and it's not comment spam! Cool, recognition from the wider world.

The blog of the day site seems mildly interesting, so I'll post the link here, and after I poke around a bit more, maybe I'll talk more about it.

http://blogoftheday.org/

Carlo said...

Wow, recognition is cool! However, I must add that I also don't like hand-dryers. Considering the rapidity by which males use the washroom, hand-dryers dry one's hands way too slowly. I'm more for some form of "laser-box" that instantaneously removes the water from one's hands, along with the upper layer of skin! Pure sanitary goodness...

Anonymous said...

http://g2.mikensteph.com/v/Steph/AAR-Reunion/Atlanta/PIC_0016.jpg.html

Behold the power of the X-lerator.

Felt like burning.

TheBrummell said...

Yes, Steph, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. However, given your sex, I expect you took that picture NOT in a men's room.

Damned sexist architects

Anonymous said...

I don't have any photographic evidence, but I know men and boys who have seen them in Men's rooms in Canada (that picture was taken in Louisville, Kentucky. I know. I was in Kentucky. I live with that knowledge every day.) in places you have been.

If you are still peeved, blame The Man. Hang on.... you remind me of someone.

Colin Purrington said...

I'd like to add to your rant: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpurrin1/6021777034/

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