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Comment by Natsu | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to see more automatic doors, especially on restrooms, but I understand that automatic doors are pretty expensive for some reason?

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No need to have 'em automatic; just ensure they open outwards, so you can push 'em open with your foot.

I just always grab a paper towel and use it to grab the handle with. Seems like an easy enough solution to me.

Except for those bathrooms with hand dryers which are supposedly environmentally friendly and hygienic, and not like an easy way for the facilities to skimp out on paying for paper towels and their disposal. I have a suspicion that they are probably worse since they are high-wattage when actually used (instead of people just wiping their hands on their pants) and they blow germs everywhere, and if the Dyson ones really loud and accumulate nasty-looking water inside of them, but I have never been able to rigorously test this.

I recall there being a few studies about the Dysons that concluded they were worse than paper drying.

They also create dangerous levels of sound for children and other people who’s ears are close to them when in use.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4918665/

Doesn't always work well if the bin is too far away from the door.

On cruise ships they have been working this out for a bit. There's a bin by the door. You grab the handle with your towel, put the towel in the bin while holding the door with your toe, and then exit. Ship's health propaganda points out that this will be the case.

Luckily, the bathroom is not the only location in the entire building with a trashcan

Once when I was at a bathroom I saw a door that had a metal band affixed to it, so you could put your foot between the door and the band to open it.

That being said, that would be only sanitary if you were wearing a shoe with a closed toe.

https://www.stepnpull.com

Not affiliated with the company, but definitely a fan of the product.

Shoes or not most diseases cannot infect through skin. They need mucous membrane. Washing hands after touching the feet is enough to keep the worst stuff out.

Well, diseases can also infect through breaks in skin, and your feet are probably one of the roughest treated parts of your body.

It's not a major vector. We don't always wear gloves either.

The difference between feet and hands is that hands frequently touch mucous membranes, where feet don't. So if you can move a contaminating activity from the hands to the feet this easily reduces infections by an order of magnitude for that vector.

This is why it's a bad idea to pick your nose with your toes.

Well in general it's a good idea to wash your hands and feet before letting them touch your face.

I’ve also seen restroom doors with vertical pull bars that have a gap at the top, so you can sling them open with your wrist without putting your hand on it.

I'd love to find something cheap, like maybe some kind of lever device you could step on, that would open the doors mechanically without the need of using hands.

I have been trying on and off to come up with just such a device for decades. Leverage and profile are the big problems - and a door that opens inwards is a bugger.

Doors that open both ways are easy - just push to open

Maybe with some pneumatics? I dunno, hmm.

Why do they need a door?

Motorway service stations in the UK don't have doors on the entrance to the restroom just to the stalls. Same in many airports around the world.

Ok, smaller facilities might need doors but quite a few really don't.

I wonder if there are other, cheaper ways to give people a manual option to open the door without touching it. Maybe some mechanical device you could step on to open a door?

Fire code requires that doors swing open in the direction of egress under certain conditions:

https://www.nfpa.org/Assets/files/AboutTheCodes/101/101_FAQs... (PDF link)

Unless, according to code, there isn't enough room in the outer area, or opening outwards would create a hazard. This is often why many public bathroom door open inwards, and yet passed code inspections.

The very first sentence of the paragraph in your link's section on this subject mentions these exceptions.

My post includes the clause "under certain conditions". I was trying to inform the OP of fire code regulations that might impede this design. I'm not sure why this was responded to so negatively.

I think that’s fine. The path of egress should always be outside the bathroom, no?

Can this be worked around with two sets of doors (opening in separate directions) or doors that can swing either way?

There are 3d-printable parts you can put on top of your door handle to be able to open it with your arms instead of your hands:

https://www.dezeen.com/2020/04/27/handle-hacks-hands-free-do...

https://www.materialise.com/en/hands-free-door-opener

I open them with my elbow, provided they don't have a knob. Door knobs are less popular nowadays anyway.

Only the first 3d model on that first linked page is for a knob. The others are for handles.

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