I still hate hot-air hand dryers....

[poltr1]

In many public restrooms I've been in over the years, there are no paper or cloth towels provided for me to dry my hands after washing them. Instead, I gotta press the button and rub my hands under the stream of warm air. And they usually shut off about 10 seconds before my hands are totally dry. Grr argh.

Do they really save natural resources as they claim? Yes, they don't generate paper towel waste or require laundering after done. But paper is a renewable resource. Electricity is clean energy, except for where it's often generated -- coal or nuclear power plants. And I just can't blow my nose or clean up a dirty kid with a stream of hot air.

I think there's a little cult going around that scratches the words "WIPE HANDS ON PANTS" as an added instruction on some of them.

I recently found a hot-air dryer that's effective: Excel's XLerator hand dryer. The airflow is turbo-charged or something, but it gets the job done before it shuts off! The only drawback is that it's noisier than the other hot-air hand dryers.

Comments

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced that the only reason so many public bathrooms get away with offering the electric dryers is that very few people actually dry their hands. Even in bathrooms with towels available, I often see men wash their hands (in the perfunctory ritual way that people usually wash their hands) and just walk out. When it's just electric dryers, the other patrons who do walk over to the dryers often leave before the timer cuts out and almost never push the button again. I refuse to believe that my hands are somehow more wet than everyone else's after I wash or that the fact that they're not dry in the time most people seem to be satisfied with is because I'm somehow doing it wrong. They just aren't willing to stand there any longer. I've never had the great horror of germs that pervades our culture, but the door handle being dripping wet because the last guy didn't dry his hands grosses me out.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

but the door handle being dripping wet because the last guy didn't dry his hands grosses me out.

Because...water is gross? The germs are supposed to come off when you're washing your hands, not drying them. So while I can see finding it annoying if the handle is wet because it's harder to open, or something like that, I can't really see why it would be gross.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

"gross" is an emotional reaction, not a rational one.

Water isn't gross by itself. It's the unexpected and unwanted sensation of cold, slimy damp on the door handle that bothers me.

[catalana.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay, that I can get. See, a reaction to the *sensation* I understand. It was the water part that I was confused by.

[athenawindsong.livejournal.com]

:::sneaks up::::

http://onemansblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/pushbuttonreceivebacon.jpg

:::runs away:::

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Target has the XLerator in their men's room. I love both the way it dries my hands thoroughly (no creepy moist spots between the fingers) and the dimpling effect it produces in my hands when it blows the flesh this way and that.

Then again, I enjoy those face pictures of astronauts-to-be in centrifuges, too. Nu?