Where Are We Today With Hand Dryer Technology

The world of Hand Dryers has truly come a long way. Since the early days, much headway has been made in many areas of the hand dryer and washroom experience, drying time and noise levels are two things that have massively improved in the last 20 years. Nowadays, you can expect a reasonable 10-15 second drying time without bursting your eardrums! The cost of running the average Hand Dryer has also come down a fair bit, at least in proportion to the cost of living situation and inflation involved. The more efficient these products become, the less C02 emissions are generated from manufacturing to use, which continues to position Hand Dryers ahead of alternate methods such as paper towels. In addition, the use of anti-microbial technologies, and the push for cold air drying experiences, are all making positive leaps towards combatting the notion that Hand Dryers just spread bacteria around the washroom. Besides, if you wash your hands properly there shouldn't be much bacteria to disperse in the air!

Why Are Hand Dryers More Important Than Ever?

We really believe that Hand Dryers are more than ever a necessity in commercial or public washrooms. Throughout the Covid period, the branding of paper towels as "more hygienic" really impacted contractors' and specifiers' image of Hand Dryers, combined with the ETS's debatable research and funded reports, we think that Hand Dryers have had a really bad public image distortion.

The waste and emissions generated by single paper towel use can really add up, and it's easy to forget that washroom paper towels are not recyclable, something many people may never realise and something that contributes to the ever-increasing issues of global warming and landfill overfilling. Switching to a Hand Dryer ensures hygiene can be maintained through anti-microbial design and use of HEPA filtration to remove harmful particles from the air. In addition, using a hand dryer -

"you’ll be causing somewhere between 9 and 40 grams of carbon dioxide emissions. If you use two towels, data suggests you will be responsible for roughly 56 grams of carbon dioxide emissions." - Stanford Mag

What's Up Next In The Future? 

As the world of Hand Dryers evolves, we have a few key predictions that are to come with the passing of time. Firstly, an incredible concept of Negative Ion drying will pick up steam. The idea, which is claimed by Veltia as the first to incorporate, uses ionisation of the atmosphere to remove mites, particles, and odours from the air, both in its motor and the washroom, air purity should be improved with this technology. Moving forward, we believe features like this will really help the fight against single-use paper towels, as well as improve hygiene for users.

Further to this, the HEPA standard of filtration, which has first become a major business since Covid, is only likely to become more of a mandatory tick box for specifiers. HEPA filtration ensures that as many particles and harmful substances in the air and on the hands are being caught and removed whilst using a Hand Dryer, which can only further enhance health benefits and also help towards certain accreditations and specification tick boxes.

Thirdly, we believe that there will be a push to break the next speed boundaries, currently the considered industry "best" is the 8-12 second dry time, but to push for the average or lower cost dryers to reach the sub 10 seconds mark should help with adoption and proper operation of Hand Dryers. We all know the younger generations have less and less time to spare (or lower attention spans if you prefer!)  as such, Hand Dryers need to accommodate the latest generational norms.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we think the future is bright! In an ideal world, the washroom will suit all, regardless of accessibility. It will be quiet, touchless and overall aim to be un-memorable, I'm sure, at least anecdotally, any washroom you do remember is likely to be based on a negative experience. Hand Dryers will be fast, quiet, and offer impressive economic and environmental savings for purchaser and end user alike. We'd love to talk more with you about any Hand Dryer-related query you may have, so please feel free to contact us on 01934 253600 should you have any further questions.