Lower-cost Hand Drying Solution

The economy is recovering, so businesses are expanding and public buildings are becoming busier. This puts facilities managers under pressure to prevent occupancy and operating costs from running away uncontrolled. Working on the principle that frequent small savings quickly accumulate to something valuable, Mitsubishi Electric UK's Marketing & Communications Manager Garry Lewis considers the costs of hand drying.

Every commercial and public building has bathrooms and if you work out the number of visits they receive per day or per year, the figures soon add up. An office worker, for example, may wash his or her hands three-to-six times in a day or 750-1,500 times a year. Let's take an average of 1,000 washes per year.

Facilities managers know that on average most people use three or four paper towels to dry their hands (even though they could probably manage with one) - say 3,500 paper towels per year. Paper towels actually cost about a penny each, so each office worker costs their employer £35 per year in paper towels (and you can add to that the cost of soap, hot water, a janitor to top up the towel dispenser and the disposal costs).

A rule of thumb often used in facilities management is that the running costs of a hot air hand dryer are about one-tenth that of paper towels (disposal costs are zero and janitorial duties are much reduced). Taking this one step further, the Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel high-speed hand dryer costs about one-tenth as much as a hot air dryer - or one-hundredth the cost of paper towels.

Therefore, in a heavy-use environment, the installation of say 10 or 100 Jet Towel hand dryers offers a painless and guaranteed way to reduce a building's running cost.

Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel achieves this by operating in a way that is completely unlike a hot air dryer. Instead of using heat to evaporate moisture from hands, it uses a high-speed laminar air flow to shear it off.

This is a concept that was developed by Mitsubishi Electric in 1993, based on a piece of industrial equipment called an air knife. The company has always retained its leadership in this technology, despite an increasing number of competitor products.

The Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel also offers many more advantages over conventional hand drying methods. For instance, water from users' hands is blown straight into a drain, affording maximum hygiene. This compares to conventional dryers which effectively make any bacteria airborne in the environment.

Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel also has an antimicrobial finish on all of its major surfaces and a clean-lined design for easy wipe down. Mitsubishi Electric ergonomists and stylists worked closely together on the design of the Jet Towel, so that as well as looking great it is easy to use and, for janitorial staff, easy to clean. It is available in three classic finishes: clean white, satin silver and sophisticated black; so fits effortlessly into most interior decors.

Designed for low noise, the Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel has been awarded the Noise Abatement Society's `Quiet Mark`, due to its ability to operate at 58dB to 61dB, making it one of the quietest high-speed hand dryers on the market. The latest models include new wave-shaped hyper-nozzle designs, which provide jet-stream control with even lower noise and greater efficiency.

Finally, it is very significant that the Jet Towel's drying time is from only 9 seconds, compared to 30 seconds for hot air drying. This means that most people dry their hands thoroughly rather than walking away after 15-20 seconds with still-damp hands and risking the spread of bacteria onto door handles, etc. At busy times, queues are less likely to build up, so people are not discouraged from a full washing and drying routine.

It is worthy of note that the motor creating the laminar air flow was developed specifically for the Jet Towel and is small and very energy efficient. This, coupled with the fact that it runs from only 9 seconds per user, means that total energy usage is very low. In fact, when running, the Jet Towel motor consumes about half the energy of a hot air dryer motor and runs for only one-third of the time. The energy savings are so great that Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel has been registered for the UK Government's Enhanced Capital Allowances (ECA) scheme for energy-efficient products, so will improve cash flow through accelerated tax relief. (The ECA scheme is a key part of the Government's programme to manage climate change. It provides businesses with extra tax relief for investments in equipment that meets published energy-saving criteria.)

In conclusion, we can say that Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel hand dryers are tax efficient to buy and very low-cost to run, yet offer many operational benefits to facility owners, facility managers and users.

About Mitsubishi Jet Towel

Mitsubishi Electric's first Jet Towel was launched in 1993 and the version now available in Europe is in the eighth generation of its development. It has proved a winner with installers for its high tech elegance, with operators for its low running cost and reliability, and with users for its convenience, speed, hygiene and innovative design. The Jet Towel has high environmental credentials, avoiding the use of paper towels or rolled cloth and lowering power consumption and noise levels to a fraction of alternative hot air dryers.

Further Information

Website: www.jettowel.co.uk
Email: [email protected]