American toilets

Yes, it *was* a Holiday Inn. I'm impressed with your knowledge of hotel lavatory facilities!

How hot do you reckon the air in a dryer would have to be to kill any bacteria?

I read somewhere, possibly the Guardian, that if you wash your hands under running water for 10 seconds, they will be as clean if you use soap as if you don't.

Certainly. But I'm under the impression that, under normal circumstances, the cleanest thing in any ordinary building is its cold water supply.

I always thought the point of a dryer was to cut down the number of things you have to touch. One-push taps and motion sensors controlling taps are there with similar intentions.

Er, I think not. The temperature of the air would surely have to be hotter than it is to achieve that.

My general practice is to wash my hands, rinse them well, touch as little as possible in order to leave the room, and let my hands dry by evaporation in the open air. Does that make me weird?

I stay in so many different hotels it becomes almost a hobby to inspect the plumbing, the air conditioning and sometimes the wiring to see how they work.

It's certainly a way to find out which brands of bathroom ceramic and brassware are solid and which aren't.

I've never seen these kinds of pressure flush anywhere else and was intrigued, so had to look inside the cistern to see how it worked. The mechanics seem to be a retrofit kit because the chinaware was not that new. It was probably done as a water saving measure. There is indeed a pressure vessel. The label on the side indicated that it was precharged to 30PSI (about 2 bar). It was filled with a non-return valve from the mains and then there was a sprung return valve hooking up the vessel to the flush pipe. Press the button and it discharges the lot in a very few seconds. One effect of that was that there was splashing of the bowl contents onto the floor. Unlike most hotels in the Nordic countries, these bathrooms do not have a drain set into the floor, so there is no convenient way to just hose the floor with the shower hose.

The idea seemed quite good, the execution poor.

I'm off to a conference in Cannes in a few weeks - I'll take a screwdriver this time!

And there are no consumables that need to be procured and fitted.

At one time, I believe, it was believed they were "green"er, but this subsequently turned out not to be true.

I agree with you about the taps, but the point of installing dryers is purely to reduce labour costs (refilling paper towels dispensers and emptying bins).

I've noticed that toilets in hospitals *always* have paper towels and pedal-operated bins. (Occasionally they have dryers in addition, but they always provide paper towels.) I think that's strong evidence that medical people consider paper towels to be the most hygienic option.

Round here, they also have hygenic "dry" hand wash that doesn't require towelling off. It is compulsory to wash your hands with it every time you enter or leave a ward.

Christian.

The message from snipped-for-privacy@ssrl.org.uk (Sam Nelson) contains these words:

I don't particularly like hand-driers, preferring paper towels. The worst sort of drier are those with touch-controls instead of a proper button. They just don't work for me when I've got wet hands, so I had to use my elbow. Good job I wear teeshirts most of the time.

And it's not the drier that's broken - the person next in line has no trouble - they just don't work for me. Shrewsbury pool's got sensor switches on their showers - can't get them to work either - and yet other people around me have no trouble.

What about mirrors? Do you reflect?

-- Richard

Are you sure that you're not a ghost?

If you read it in the Guardian, it is almost certainly suspect information

I noticed that. It's a pity that the staff don't use it in many cases.

Watch out for the beer prices in hotels there. ?10 is a typical rate for 500ml.

However, it did lead to the Royal Berkshire Hospital getting one of the best scores for hospital cleanliness. They also now use rounded skirting (a bit like upside down coving), including in front of cupboards, to make mopping into the corners easier.

Christian.

Bless. I'm still convinced this is Drivel's sock puppet. Two posters can't really be that uneducated can they?

hands

Hmm, so there is really no need for Hospital operating room staff to wash their hand with soap, let alone scrubbing them with anti-bacterial soap. Sounds correct, considering the spread of infections in modern hospitals....

Yes, but then Hospitals are a special case, AIUI no one has caught MRSA (for example) from drying their hands with a hot air dryer - personally I'm more concerned at needing to use door handles etc. in service stations etc that in having to use a hot air dryer, considering the number of people who don't even rinse their hands let alone wash them... :~(