Hacker News Reader

Comment by raiyu | Hacker News Reader

The public bathroom air blades drive me crazy. It keeps splashing the water back and forth, the air speed is too high and my hands inadvertently touch the sides and probably there are a bunch of germs circulating inside, as not everyone washes their hands thoroughly.

The old school super blowers that just do hot air down, or whichever direction you turn, probably consume more power, but certainly dry my hands faster and I don't have to worry about touching anything that isn't clean in the process.

View on HN

Not only are airblades gimmicky nonsense, they are very loud.

Anything that blows air around will also blow viruses and the like into the air. People do not wash hands in a "standardized manner" and some people do not even use soap. After their hands are wet, they just stick their hands to the airblade, sometimes touching the sides and shaking the rest of the water all over because they are in a hurry and can't wait that 10 seconds or whatever it takes.

I hate airblades and I don't like hot air dryers.

Paper towels are the best.

Reminds me of newer appliances (such as washing machines/toilets) that brag about water efficiency yet don't do nearly as good a job, requiring a second cycle, thus using more water.

In at least some cases, the greater nominal efficiency may be required by regulations.

I did recently buy a HE washer to replace the junker that came with the house. It may just be that I live a (mostly) white collar lifestyle, but I do make a mess of clothes I wear for renovation and yard work or for camping.

So far, the new washer hasn't given me any issues with getting things clean. The only adjustment I had to make was learning to use much less detergent than I was used to.

There are also just two people in the house and no kids, so perhaps it's more of an issue with larger loads or more grass stains, etc.

HE washing machines seems to be one of the few things where less water is still ok. They make up for it by running longer. A water efficient toilet just ends up not working as well because it’s using less water and not reusing it (like washing machines).

Washers seem to be an exception. My gut feeling is that the real HE improvement was switching everyone from top loaders to front loaders. Front loaders do a great job cleaning and use a whole lot less water in the process.

Front loaders have bad mold issues with the liner though. We switched away from an old one. No regrets.

When you're not using a front loading machine, leave the door and soap tray ajar.

Yeah I can see where that might end up being an issue. We always leave the door open when it's not in use, and we run the cleaning cycle once a week, so we haven't had any problems at this point (knock on wood).

I prefer the Excel XLERATOR hand dryers, and usually spec them over most other models. Hands dry in ~10 seconds, not spashing onto a lower surface, etc.

I hate them because they are too loud. Sure they work fast, but I need to put air plugs in before using them, and those are never provided.

*Ear plugs, hopefully. :)

The noise is a feature. It is a social signal that you are clean for everyone in the establishment, or at least for everyone who can see the entrance to the restroom.

its 10 seconds, I prefer loud and fast to mediocre in both respects.

Ditto. They dry my hands much faster than the Dyson and I don't have to touch a germ infested surface.

Yeh, those are good. Though they seem to have appeared shortly after the Dyson blade dryers. Dyson seem to have shaken the market a bit into realising you actually need power in these things for them to be useful.

No, the XLERATORS predate the dyson airblade by ~4-5 years. The dyson just made people realize that they were more expensive than the garbage units people used before, but not that expensive.

I checked and I spec'd an XLERATOR in 2004, and I think they became available the year before. The dyson took another 2-3 years to reach market, so 4-5 years is probably overstating it.

Either way Excel were the innovators. Dyson just made it look cool. The apple-style marketers who charged 2x as much so could afford some stupid overengineering.

I thought those were considered to be a bad idea because they blasted all of the germs from your hands all over the room?

Also, my kids won't use them because they're too loud.

what do you think has more germs, your recently washed hands or the bathroom around you?

Also, the dyson's do the same thing.

The Dyson ones were also considered bad.

Protip: If you're in a public rest room and there are two hand dryers next to each other, use them both at the same time. One for each hand. Much faster.

Further Protip: Wipe your hands on your jeans.

Unless I'm at the library or a Starbucks, I generally don't wear the kind of clothes in public that one wipes hands on.

I had to read this comment like 3 times to parse it... and I'm still not sure I get it

Wiping your hands on your pants when there's towels or something is kind of silly, but how on earth does the article of clothing define if you can wipe your hands on it?

Are you wearing vinyl pants or something?

think the point is here that things would stain / be too expensive.. jeans don't really "show" if you wipe your hands on them, and if they do, oh well, just part of that 'worn jeans' look

It’s a very intriguing post. I, too, have been trying to work out its logical ramifications. I feel, perhaps, that the poster may, at any given time, be in possession of two sets of clothing.

I interpreted it as: Generally the clothes they wear are either too nice or too nasty for wiping clean wet hands. At the library and Starbucks they wear clothes appropriate for wiping hands. Too nasty makes sense to me, if you work landscaping, construction, maintenance, auto repair, possibly even in food service.

The too nice viewpoint is less relatable, but could be from fastidiousness or OCD applied to the clothes themselves, rather than being concerned about your hands.

how on earth does the article of clothing define if you can wipe your hands on it?

If I'm wearing $50 jeans, I might wipe my hands on them.

If I'm wearing a $2,000 suit, I won't wipe my hands on it.

I've wiped my hands on my suit before because

a) it's just water, and very little of it at that since you do the directed shake into the sink first

b) the thought of what I'm wearing never enters my mind when I wipe my hands on my pants

I don't think anyone really does it purposely, you just blank for a second and the action is done and now you have a wet spot on your pants

You could permanently attach a small travel towel like they sell in camping stores to your shirt somewhere under arm. Beats having to use air dryers.

They released a new version that fits the form factor of traditional dryers where you only put your hands under it without having to dangle them between 2 pieces. They work pretty well although they do make the table/floor wet since they are blowing the water off your hands rather than evaporating it.

I always found the traditional hot air ones to be useless and I would walk away with wet hands after using one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com