What's the latest opinion on hot air hand dryers?

We are getting through mountains of paper towel so were wondering what the latest position is on hand dryers? Specifically, there is the Dyson Airblade, which at around £700 is competetive compared to 4 rolls of paper towel a day. It claims to use clean air and dries hands in 10 seconds. We have just acquired BRC accreditation; are the Dyson dryers an idea or not acceptable?

We are getting through mountains of paper towel so were wondering what the latest position is on hand dryers? Specifically, there is the Dyson Airblade, which at around £700 is competetive compared to 4 rolls of paper towel a day. It claims to use clean air and dries hands in 10 seconds. We have just acquired BRC accreditation; are the Dyson dryers an idea or not acceptable?

The Dyson Airblade is an excellent choice and it is acceptable.

We are getting through mountains of paper towel so were wondering what the latest position is on hand dryers? Specifically, there is the Dyson Airblade, which at around £700 is competetive compared to 4 rolls of paper towel a day. It claims to use clean air and dries hands in 10 seconds. We have just acquired BRC accreditation; are the Dyson dryers an idea or not acceptable?

As long as you can support your choice with a Risk Assessment you should satisfy BRC. Collect data from online or conduct a few tests yourself to show effectiveness.

i even think this one is NFS approved.
At least there is one hand dryer with NSF approval logo on it.

I myself as an auditor accept air dryers. However, not all auditors may do so. Some say that the dirty water maintain in these fast dryers to contaminate your hands.

Anyway, make sure you buy enough air dryers. Even with only 10 workers and if the drying takes 10 seconds. The last person has to wait more then 1,5 minute. If I come to a company with 40 workers and there is only 1 air dryer, I will question the use of it, and make sure that I will be around the dryer after lunchbreaks to check if all workers use it.

Good luck with your decision.

Some say that the dirty water maintain in these fast dryers to contaminate your hands.

Thanks - this is the sort of thing I want to avoid. I am happy to get them if they are not going to cause any questions or need any "special" maintenance like swabbing water drops on them etc...

Thanks - this is the sort of thing I want to avoid. I am happy to get them if they are not going to cause any questions or need any "special" maintenance like swabbing water drops on them etc...

I would want to see a environmental Listeria swabbing schedule that included the drier and it's surrounding areas. All that water vapour has to go somewhere, so why not the floor. Then our friendly engineers stand there, in the nice damp patch, to wash their hands before climbing onto the machine (even if they have dedicated foot wear in that area)to carry out any maintenance.

I've seen them at a number of factories, and so far i've not come across anyone who has risk assessed them for Listeria (in the area that they are situated in. I usually (rightly or wrongly) give a non-conformance for not risk assessing.

I'd rather see coloured paper towels.

Caz xx

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda Caz!

We are low risk ingredients and don't have a micro programme as our products do not support bug growth (tests have shown some are cidal!) and are a couple of steps away from RTE.

I don't really want to get into this sort of detail so it looks like it will be Dyson 0 : Mountains of paper towels 1...

I have found Listeria in the 'well' part of the Dysons. If you think about it, they drive the water droplets down into the machine and collect at the bottom forming a nice septic bath as the drain hole soon blocks up.

You need a decent cleaning regime and swabbing programme to use them.

I have seen a Dyson fitted with a UV light which allegedly sanitised at the same time, but I have not seen any data to support this.

Just coming back to this we may yet go with the Airblade as it seems our paper towel bill is pushing £100 a month:
Does anyone have, that they would like to share:
A cleaning and disinfecting procedure for one of these machines (cleaning agents, frequency etc)?
A swabbing regime (frequency, sites)?
A procedure in the event of finding listeria (presumably it would be repeat standard cleaning until clear swab result and reduce gap between cleans)?
Thanks.

Bump...

I am surprised there is no experience to report on the use of these machines. We will have ATP swabs here but would have to send out for Listeria to be done.

If we get one I can anticipate a daily clean by spraying it down with a disinfecting solution and drying it off but other than that how often should it be swabbed? Once a week? Once a month? Maybe we can reduce the future frequency by validating the cleaning procedure with more frequent tests at the start...?

We have some of them.

We did a once off swab and the results for the air blade spray system were good but the rest of the inner walls were not that great. The way we use them is such that the hand "should" not touch the inner wall. To me the bad result from the inner walls is not that surprising, it is almost like swabbing a sink - what would you get??

We have a cleaning programme - the cleaners clean it at least 4 times a day.

Their website has a cleaning guide http://www.dysonairblade.com.au/

One of their biggest selling line is the reduction environment waste. I read on the AIB website (Q&A) that they don't accept them.

One way forward to to carry out your own internal validation.

R