I find there’s three types of hand dryers: the standard kind that blows really hot air to evaporate the water, the ones that blow strongly to push the water off the hands, and the ones that are supposed to do one of these but don’t. At my university almost all of the hand dryers fall into the third category.
Why are hand dryers like this, and am I somehow drying my hands wrong?
These are known not to be sanitary, so I just let my hands air dry if there are no towels
How are they unsanitary?
Someone else linked this in their comment but the air in those dryers has to come from somewhere… if it’s coming from the bathroom, where there are no lids on the toilets and aerosolized poop particles are sucked into the dryer and right onto your hands, I would lean towards that being unsanitary. This is also why it’s important to put the lid down before you flush at home, to avoid all those particles floating around onto anything exposed in your bathroom, like maybe your toothbrush or towels.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823
Wow. TIL. Thanks for the info.
The theory is that they aerosolize the water and whatever was on your hands, but if you did a decent job cleaning them, it’s not really a problem.
1: most people don’t do a decent job
2: how often do you think those filters get cleaned?
3: splattering tap water all over is also bad hygienic practice
They’re banned in the good hospitals for a reason.
I think it’s because they vacuum air from a public restroom and blow it all over your hands.