25 ms·
Calgary student has been studying decibel levels in hand dryers since age nine
- jedberg 7y agoSo if I'm interpreting this right, solution 1, use towels for your kids if you can and solution 2, if there are no towels, hold your kid up and away so they are above the exit point of the air.
- adwww 7y agoThe Dyson blade driers (and their copy cats) are off limits to children anyway - they are not nearly tall enough to position hands inside them from above.
- zeristor 7y agoThey’re building them into taps now
- mnky9800n 7y agoThat's the strangest thing I've ever encountered in a washroom. It's bizarre and it's not obvious at all what to do with it.
- anticensor 7y agoThat is an xkcd-worthy tragicomedy.
- xxs 7y agoWhich is an awful idea. Often times the dryer starting even before the water runs down. Also it requires enough spacing not to blow onto the neighbor faucet(s).
- IshKebab 7y agoI've used them a lot (used to work for Dyson, though not on the driers) and I'd say the taps are actually one of their best products. Have you actually used one?
- LoSboccacc 7y agoI wonder if using front trousers or shirt sides would be sanitary enough to be solution 1.5
- em-bee 7y agoi just let my hands dry naturally, and teach kids to do the same. as long as it's not freezing cold outside they will dry soon enough. it's the most environmental friendly too.
- abricot 7y agoThe transmission of bacteria is more likely to occur from wet skin than from dry skin[0] [0]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538484/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538484/
- daveFNbuck 7y agoSo you're the guy who gets the bathroom door handle wet, causing me to use twice the resources to wash my hands again, plus extra paper towels if available to dry off the handle.
- em-bee 7y agonope, see my other replies, not touching the door handle with wet hands. if there is no way to get out without touching the handle i'll dry off first. i just won't if i know i can get away with out touching anything for a while
- proee 7y agoHand dryers can also spread airborne bacteria onto your hands. Perhaps modern dryers include intake filters to address this issue, but the filter would need replaced on a regular schedule, which is probably not a realistic expectation for most restroom facilities. https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-...
- Reason077 7y agoDyson models do have HEPA filters on the air intakes.
- forgotmypwd123 7y agoThat doesn't help when the air outlets and inside of the drier fill up with gross slime mold
- hwillis 7y agoJust don't touch the basin area in the bottom!
- adrianmonk 7y agoJust don't touch is a tall order with Dyson hand dryers. They are fundamentally hard to use correctly because of tight clearances. The way they work is based on the idea of a narrow stream of air that gets water off your hands better. But for the stream to remain narrow and not dissipate, you have to get your hands close to the equipment. It's based on almost but not quite touching it. Positioning your hands in a careful and controlled manner is, ergonomically speaking, an uphill battle. So on average, it won't happen often. In other words, Dyson hand dryers kind of trap you into accidentally touching the part you don't want to touch. Worse, the same applies to all the people who used the hand dryer before you. It's a very reasonable bet that the surface where the air comes out has been touched by someone who didn't use soap when they washed their hands.
- 7y ago
- Havoc 7y agoI don’t mind them in general. Some of the new high speed ones are absolutely horrendous in this regard. Literally hurts my ears even a couple meters away I’ll rather walk out with dripping hands
- danw1979 7y agoI feel the same. I dry my hands on my trousers and wear headphones in the toilets to avoid the blast of white (?) noise from other users of the high-speed dryers at work. It wouldn't surprise me if the UK regulations on these devices also only measure the noise levels without hands in the airflow... there's no way these are legal when they are actually in use.
- fesoliveira 7y agoDon't know why you are being downvoted, but at my gym I go through the same situation. Whenever I go into the change room/washroom, I go to the locker furthest from the dryer, meters away from it. It doesn't really matter since every time someone activates it, it sounds as if it blowing right next to me.
- lyrr 7y agoWhy not dry it with tissue paper?
- b3lvedere 7y agoKudos to the great research. My kids hate the Dyson hand dryers. These things are incredibly loud.
- saw-lau 7y agoMy son (autistic and generally sensitive to noise) point-blank refuses to go into public toilets/restrooms just in case one goes off. :-(
- leibnitz27 7y agoI'm in exactly the same boat. To be honest, I've started to get twitchy whenever anyone uses one when he's NOT around, I'm that used to watching out for them. Hand dryers. Leaf blowers. Hair dryers. Hoovers. But bowling alleys and swimming pools are fine. I really want to figure out the spectrum of noise that hurts.
- userbinator 7y agoI really want to figure out the spectrum of noise that hurts. I suspect that, like most people in general, he's fine with lower-frequency sounds, but just more sensitive to high frequency ones.
- penagwin 7y agoI've been sensitive to loud noises (still can't drive with my windows down) since I was a kid, and I've been diagnosed by a doctor to be on the spectrum (albeit high functioning) for various other reasons as well. It's obviously different for everyone, but for me it comes down to a few things: * Generally the higher pitch noises are way worse then a low deep "growl" * Sudden, high decibel noises, especially if they're unexpected are BAD * High decibel repetitive noises (ever have only one window open in your car on the highway and hear a WOMPH WOMPH WOMPH sound?) are unbearable. * Restaurant buzzers, alarms, etc. Even the alarms coming from inside McDonalds while I'm in the drive through make me uncomfortable/ * Anything shrilly, no matter the decibel. Sounds that are lower pitch, and continuous are much easier to get used to. The AC kicking on is uncomfortable, but after ~30 seconds the fan noise doesn't bother me. For me public places have an "ambient sound" that seems to get filtered out okay. Mostly only the occasional small child skrill bothers me. I also have social anxiety so I'll get uncomfortable anyway however. ---- This seems to align with your observation that bowling alleys/swimming pools being okay. Most of the sounds are lower pitch, continuous, and most of the sudden noises are expected (kids splashing, bowling ball rolling, etc.) The biggest difference is the decibel level though. Hand dryers. Leaf blowers. Hair dryers. Hoovers, are all LOUD. Imagine your parents SCREAMING AS LOUD AS THEY CAN AT YOU. That's how those feel. --- I have a feeling my observations will apply to most people on the spectrum, but you'd have to multiply it by 10x/100x depending on the severity of the individual.
- ohazi 7y agoThe Dyson airblade is the fucking worst. In addition to apparently being one of the louder ones, it's also one of the most unhygienic. It blows the germs off of your hands and onto your face. You should avoid them like the actual plague.
- danielecook 7y agoI hate that thing. It's so loud. I refuse to dry my hands with it.
- dfee 7y agoI’ve always thought it was disgusting that I’m raising / lowering my hands into a narrow slot where I’m bound to touch the sides - sides where others (who might’ve washed their hands less well) have also been depositing a germ factory.
- danek 7y agoI’m sure mold grows in there because of the constant dampness. You can’t avoid touching the sides because the airflow is so strong and kind of forces it.
- bluedino 7y agoIn the old days there was a multiple use towel than hung out of the dispensers and just circulated back in. Yuck. https://collegeofcuriosity.com/2-18-restroom-evolution/ https://collegeofcuriosity.com/2-18-restroom-evolution/
- fencepost 7y agoIt was actually a roll of clean towel mechanically linked to a pickup roll of used towel, but it's much bulkier than paper towels so it faded away. In many ways it's very similar to the change from cloth diapers to disposables.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- 7y ago
- tda 7y agoMy kids get nervous as soon as they even see a hand dryer. They start crying when it's on. I thought they were exaggerating, it never occurred to me that sound levels for kids are different because they are smaller (though it makes complete sense). That, coupled with higher sensitivity to noise and more delicate hearing canals of youngsters kind of make me feel like a bad parent for trying to let them use the dryers anyway (Even though I have long since given up). This kids research proves my kids right, and I am not easily convinced ;) Great accomplishment for I should listen to my kids. Already an impressive combination of curiosity and perseverance to get a scientific paper published for any non-academic, let alone a 13 year old!! edit: The absolute worst things are these https://www.ehanddryers.com/hand-dryers/tap-hand-dryers https://www.ehanddryers.com/hand-dryers/tap-hand-dryers, my kids just plain refuse to wash their hands out of fear of accidentally triggering the dryer
- b3lvedere 7y agoOur local fast food restaurant has one of those. Coincidentally it's also a Dyson brand. They don't work very well. Water and crap gets everywhere!
- cannam 7y agoThe Dyson combined tap-dryers are awful, awful products - we have some in newly fitted bathrooms at my workplace. I don't know how they made it out into the world without shame. They're hard to trigger reliably, they blow water everywhere, they're generally cumbersome and unpleasant to use.
- papln 7y agoThat's amazing. In a 2 minute promo video with many clips of people washing hands, and many clips of people drying hands, they never show someone washing AND drying hands in the same clip. They know the poducts doesn't work at its primary value-proposition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkpP-mEUcAs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkpP-mEUcAs
- simonh 7y ago
- bryanlarsen 7y agoMy daughter is deaf in one ear, so cannot localize sound nor can she sense distance. There are two things that absolutely terrorize her: fireworks and air dryers.
- darfikk 7y agoI recommend a read of https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-paper-towels-hygiene-dyson-airblade https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/25/hand-dryers-... which I found really interesting before committing to the anti hand dryer syndicate.
- CriticalCathed 7y agoIt's clear to me that whatever costs savings there are in using these electric dryers is not worth it considering A) they aren't even sanitary which defeats their entire purpose and B) they are dangerous to childrens ears. We really should just mandate that public restrooms use Cloth Roll Towel Systems for hand drying. It's economical in the long run, not a giant waste of resources, and it is proven to be more sanitary than paper hand towels!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Cd00d 7y agoI like the paper towel because I then have something to cleanly open the door with too.
- chousuke 7y agoI hate air dryers perhaps slightly too vehemently. I think it would be a net positive even if they were simply removed from everywhere without replacement. I'm not sure why they're so common given that they seem to only make things worse.
- Reason077 7y agoBut what are the alternatives? - Paper towels? Environmentally unsound. - Washable towel on a continuous roller/spindle thing? Common in past decades, now pretty rare. Requires regular servicing. Expensive? [1] - Don’t offer hand drying at all? Uncomfortable especially in cold climates. Might discourage people from washing their hands at all. While I agree they need to be quieter, Hand dryers are still the best technology we have right now. [1] The British Library still uses these in their washrooms, presumably because of noise concerns with hand dryers.
- gambiting 7y agoWhile I was at uni just few years ago all bathrooms had the towel on the roller. The main issue was that by the end of the day the entire roll has been used so you either re-used the same final patch of the towel that everyone already used, or don't dry your hands. Otherwise, great idea.
- chousuke 7y agoI'm a proponent of cloth rolls. Toilets need regular maintenance anyway. Perhaps an air blower would function as a backup, but I'd honestly prefer drying my hands on my clothes, since in my experience air dryers are either ineffective or in the case of air blade systems so nasty that I don't want to go anywhere near one.
- __s 7y agoLive in the cold climate of Canada. I dry my hands by slapping my pants when I walk away from the sink. Then again, I also eschewed towels for the longest time in favor of slapping myself dry after showers
- a_imho 7y ago
- tshanmu 7y agoThis is so heartening to read about - and its easy to get started - May be I can 'encourage' my child to do a replication study :)
- ggm 7y agoPaper towels every time
- aitchnyu 7y agoMost of us outgrow and then forget how cool water makes small children shiver, hunger and sun makes them weak, bitter vegetables are overpowering, sitting on grass without pants is painful, so is affection, unpolished wooden benches, men's stubble etc.
- bostonpete 7y agoI assume you don't really mean that affection is painful for small children...(?)
- taejo 7y agoI guess they're referring to things like kids running away from distant relatives who want to kiss and hug them, which is definitely something that happens.
- duderific 7y agoProbably because of the big sloppy kisses that grandmas tend to distribute.
- taejo 7y agoThat's definitely part of it, but I think (and I also remember) that a part of it is that children have a well-developed sense of personal space and who they are close enough to for different types of contact, from a pretty young age, but their sense of closeness is (quite reasonably) derived from actual (remembered) contact rather than from having a genetic relationship or contact before they can remember.
- c0vfefe 7y agoIt's not so much a conscious sense of personal space as it is discomfort with the unfamiliar.
- c0vfefe 7y ago
- tr33house 7y agoThis was actually very "eye opening." I too used to be very sensitive to dryers in general but had since forgotten how painful they can be
- Symbiote 7y agoThe paper she published is at https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxz046 https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxz046 It's behind a paywall, but Sci-Hub works very nicely with a DOI…
- Tempest1981 7y agoWow: "Several Dyson Airblade models were also very loud, including the single loudest measurement of 121 dBA"
- jamesu 7y agoOccasionally I'll check on how loud something is with my smartphone, and i'm always amazed at how loud some everyday things can get... especially when you factor in enclosed spaces.
- loginatnine 7y agoMy daughter refuses to use the big, tank less toilets that you find in public restrooms because she's scared of them. Never thought the noise level could be an issue in the origin of her fear but these things are loud when they go off and most are now motion activated so they trigger as soon as you get up. This all makes more sense now, thanks to this kid for this, I've never realized how noise was different for kids.
- bluGill 7y agoThe motion activated ones go off when you move a little, not when you stand up. I've had them go off twice while trying to go, then not go off when he was finally done. It is not pleasant to have a toilet flush under you.
- pwg 7y agoIf there is anything to hang it from, a long strip of toilet tissue, hung down in front of the sensor eye, generally prevents this effect of premature flushing.
- penagwin 7y agoThis is a good tip thanks! I'm sensitive to loud noises and some public bathrooms have really, really, really loud and honestly just flat out aggressive toilets.
- code_duck 7y agoOnly twice? That happens to me all the time. Maybe I will start covering up the sensor.
- ceejayoz 7y agoWe used to carry around a pack of post-it notes to cover the sensors for this reason. My kids would refuse outright to use them otherwise.
- userbinator 7y agoMisread it as "hair dryer" at first, but the principle is similar... Fans are loud, especially small powerful ones. There's plenty of other comments here complaining about the Dysons, and I agree; and I also much prefer the older ones (with a heater), which seem to have a far slower fan and a deeper note. That said, I find towels/paper most effective for drying. But if insisting on air drying, perhaps a design with the blower elsewhere (maybe centralised, like a vacuum --- another fanned device that's also very loud), a local heater, and slower air flow would be more ideal.
- __MatrixMan__ 7y agoA few days ago I stood before the hand dryer in my office bathroom (or at least I think it was a hand dryer, as it was mounted waist high to the left of a sink) and puzzled at its labeling. I even took a picture: https://ibb.co/mCNdGdh https://ibb.co/mCNdGdh There's no shower anywhere nearby, but this object which I consider to be obviously a hand dryer is labeled "hair dryer". Surely the people who make these know what they're for... And I agree, a large tank of compressed air with an on-demand heater on the human end would be pretty nice.
- behringer 7y agoIt's probably that the nozzle can be rotated and point upwards at your hair.
- freehunter 7y agoFor what it's worth, I've seen (and used) those in gyms and bike lockers at offices as a hair dryer. It's possible the person/company who bought it and installed it did not know what they were buying. I don't know that there's really any difference between this and a hand dryer, but I've certainly used them as hair dryers too.
- userbinator 7y agoAccording to the company that makes them, that is indeed usable for drying hair: http://www.xlerator-hand-dryer.com/ExcelHairDryer/RH76-C.html http://www.xlerator-hand-dryer.com/ExcelHairDryer/RH76-C.htm... Given that they also have an almost identical product that is a hand dryer, you can inspect the pages to find the key difference: http://www.xlerator-hand-dryer.com/ExcelHandDryer/R76-C.html http://www.xlerator-hand-dryer.com/ExcelHandDryer/R76-C.html "For hand dryers, timers are set at 30 seconds and at 3 minutes for hair drying."
- Spacemolte 7y agoInteresting, I have actually noticed that some hand dryers are uncomfortably loud, especially the "special" high powered ones. Combine that with the struggle trying to activate the dryer, and keeping it activated while trying NOT to touch the surfaces, I can understand why some kids seemingly does not like them.
- mauvehaus 7y agoMy personal least favorites are the Excel dryers, which seem to be becoming quite common. They may be reasonably loud when your hands aren't beneath them, but they become unreasonably loud when you put your hands in the air stream and start rubbing them together. I find that you get white-ish noise/half-whistling noises at an absolutely miserable level. Many years ago, I actually had a desk in an office that was maybe 10-15 meters from a nearby Excel hand dryer, separated by two doors. I hated it with a passion. Every time somebody dried their hands, I'd hear it. I left that job for a lot of reasons, and the hand dryer wasn't exactly one of them, but I wasn't sad to be rid of it. And I'm not 9. I'm 35. I find that I have pretty good hearing, at least as compared to my partner. What gets a little weird is that since leaving software and making a career change to woodworking, I've gotten more sensitive to loud noise. I used to take the subway to work like many other people. Now, I find that the noise of the train is too loud. I'm religious about wearing hearing protection in the shop. I don't know if my hearing has gotten objectively better, or if I'm just more aware of loud noise than I used to be. It'd be hard to do a study on that without a time machine though.
- cglace 7y agoI’m interested to hear about your switch from software to woodworking. How did you get started? Do you make money by building pieces on commission? Are you glad you made the switch?
- mauvehaus 7y agoI got started taking a basic hand tools class and followed that with other evening and week-long classes. I'm actually not somebody who's been in the shop since they could walk; I'm pretty late to the trade. At the moment it's like that old joke: "What do you call a drummer without a girlfriend? ... Homeless." I do make some money on commission work, but not enough to cover my living expenses. What I do make I'm largely investing back into the business, which I just started. This is probably fewer tools than you might think; I pay for annual access to the bigger tools I don't have, and I have a pretty decent selection of the moderate-sized tools that I got for pretty short money (band saw, drill press, and table saw. All good tools, total: <500 USD). Mostly it's stuff like a camera and lights to shoot my work, a logo, and the other sorts of things that separate a hobby from a business. A better website [0] is on the list as well, but never having been a web developer, my partner and I are likely going to use squarespace or something similar. Am I glad I made the switch? Emphatically yes. I love the woodworking aspect. I'm happy to report that my partner is helping with the business-y things. Also: she's a way better photographer than I am. Any of the pictures on my existing website that look good are probably hers; the crappy ones are mine (and need to be re-shot around the time we get around to settling on a logo and commit to getting a real website up). TL;DR: I'm lucky to be married to the world's most supportive partner. [0] http://longwalkwoodworking.com http://longwalkwoodworking.com <- HTML like it's 1998, CSS lifted pretty much straight from the "68 bytes of CSS..." article posted here a while ago. There really do need to be pictures on the home page, a contact page, an about page, etc. Hosted on github pages, no Jekyll, etc. I threw something up so that I could put a URL on business cards and have it go to something.
- quickthrower2 7y agoThe highest decibel things my kids are exposed to is themselves.
- fideloper 7y agocan confirm this to be true
- doctorRetro 7y agoAnd I can corroborate.
- jerf 7y agoI have loud children, but they don't actually reach 110dB. I mean, YMMV, but I'd notice if there was something literally as loud as a rock concern in my basement or backyard.
- hunter2_ 7y agoSure they do. I did a quick search and 110-130dB comes up on every result. It's all about where you measure from, due to the inverse square law. For measuring things such as speakers for product specs, the standard is to measure from one meter away. But for rock concerts and hand dryers, you measure from the typical listening position. I think you are considering your typical listening position for your child differently from the search results I found. If you were giving your kid a kiss goodnight and they screamed, it would be louder than if you were in the audience of a rock concert (but not louder than if you were kissing the concert speakers). Every time you double the distance between the source and the meter, the meter reads 6dB lower.
- klodolph 7y agoMinor factoid: While that’s true in the limiting case (far away) for rock concerts, it’s common to use line arrays which fall -3 dB when you double your distance, as long as you’re within a certain range. Within this range they follow inverse rather than inverse square.
- EamonnMR 7y agoI can't stand anything past about 80db and I absolutely hate these things. Worst part is that there's no way to turn them off once they've been activated.
- code_duck 7y agoI would never consider using one of these. The annoying thing is when someone else walks into the bathroom and turns it on. Same for the disturbing, toxic – scented hand soap that is found in most bathrooms.
- microcolonel 7y agoI regularly wear hearing protection when I visit the bigger city, and when I'm on public transit; even as an adult.
- marapuru 7y agoOut of interest, do you have a high sensitivity to noise around you? I don't live in a particularly big city and when I visit bigger ones I do feel they are noisy. But not noisy enough to wear protection. I do wear protection when I'm on my motorcycle or at a concert or festival.
- microcolonel 7y agoI can get by without protection, and it's not as though it particularly hurts; but I prefer things quieter, and it improves my mood. I often also wear it when I am working in an office environment with loud HVAC, also improves my mood. I don't really know what would qualify as high sensitivity.
- Raphmedia 7y agoI also wear earplugs and they do improve my mood and ability to stay focused. I remember that my father did the same when I was a kid. At that point I laughed, now I understand. I'm guessing sensitive ears run in the family.
- KennyFromIT 7y agoI hate clickbait titles like this where there is no current age listed for comparison to the age referenced. Is the student 18 or 9.5? The time scale matters. This reminds me of how Apple notoriously omits axis values during presentations just to make prettier-looking graphs.
- qntty 7y ago> And the researcher, 13-year-old Nora Keegan, has been studying the issue since she was nine years old.
- henvic 7y agoI rather use my own t-shirt to dry my hands than use a hand dryer. It should have been years since I last used one. I hate it since a child. Automated paper towels dispensers should be the rule, not some fancy air blade thingy. If I'm healthy, it is also good for the environment. I never liked hand dryers both because of noise and the risks of spreading germs. I'd only use them on a brand new restroom, then never any more.
- merpnderp 7y agoI've always used my clothes over an air hand dryer. You know they have to be nasty because of all the water blown off hands that are likely only marginally cleaner than before washing, and that nastiness gets aerosolized and spread around the entire bathroom. The front and sides of my pants to wick enough water away so I can use my hands while they air dry the rest of the way: problem solved.
- EADGBE 7y agoI'm most concerned with touching the handle/door with a bare hand. Too many people don't properly (or worse, at all) wash their hands after using a restroom. Therefore, I stick with the paper-towel grab. The step-handle is a nice solution to this, sometimes.
- MH15 7y agoI've never understood why more restroom doors don't open out. It's empirically better if you can just push the door open with an elbow.
- thedudeabides5 7y agowhere's the data?
- hockeybias 7y agoI despise them due to the noise and length of time they take to dry hands.
- jgalentine007 7y agoIt's odd that this article popped up, as I have been recently thinking about noise pollution when walking my dog around the outside of my neighborhood. My unscientific guess is that 50% of vehicles that pass by are significantly louder than they ought to be, and my further guess is that at least half of those vehicles are louder because the driver desires it. In the grand scheme of the world's problems it is probably very low on the list - but I'm guessing it negatively affects people, animals and insects more than you would expect. Would it be so difficult for noise pollution to be regulated like emissions (in fact, couldn't it be done in the emissions process most states in the USA perform?)
- jacquesm 7y ago> at least half of those vehicles are louder because the driver desires it Motor cycles are the worst for this. It's not rare to have whole neighborhoods woken up because one of those passes through.
- morley 7y agoNot sure why you're getting downvoted here. In Brooklyn and Queens, this happens a ton. If a loud motorcycle happens to rev when you're on the street, it's viscerally terrifying.
- buckminster 7y agoThere is a reason for this. When car drivers stop pulling out in front of motorcyclists, motorcyclists will stop fitting loud exhausts.
- dijit 7y agoThis is the same tired excuse my friend made when he got a loud bike. It’s just not true. He later told me he enjoys the feeling (vibrations) and that there was something primal about “taming” something that sounds powerful. As for car drivers, you should be assuming they can’t see you. Driving defensively is the only way to stay alive and you can argue that it shouldn’t be that way but it doesn’t make it any less true.
- adrianmonk 7y agoI wonder if anyone has considered reverberation in these measurements. It's going to make the noise louder than it would otherwise be. Basically, the loudness of a sound hitting your ear is a combination of multiple factors: 1. How loud the sound source is. 2. How close your ear is to it. 3. How much it reverberates or dissipates. Imagine if a hand dryer were installed outdoors in an open field. Sound would emanate from the dryer, then wander off never to return. Now imagine a hand dryer in a room with carpet and some soft furniture like a couch. Sound would emanate from the dryer, and some of it would hit surfaces that absorb it. But some of the sound would also hit reflective surfaces like walls or glass, and that reflected sound could come back to your ear and increase the total noise level. Now consider what a bathroom is like. For ease of cleaning, it's entirely hard surfaces. Concrete, porcelain, tile, metal, etc. These absorb almost no sound. And bathrooms are typically pretty small rooms. It's basically the worst case for taking an already-loud thing and making nearly all the noise reach your ear.
- EdwardDiego 7y agoI refuse to use the Dyson at work for precisely this reason, and I try to not be there when other people do - our bathroom is a rather small confined and reflective place.
- daveFNbuck 7y agoI find that Dyson makes some of the quieter hand dryers I've encountered, although maybe that's because they tend to be in larger restrooms. Starbucks really hurts my ears with much older style hand dryers in their single-occupancy restroom.
- lquist 7y agoYes! This is so awesome to see! And it has nothing to do with the researcher being 13. We are constantly bombarded with loud noises (don't get me started on motorcycles and construction noise) that do long-term damage to our ears. I hope that one day we can regulate these noises in public spaces. Today it starts with study.
- trophycase 7y agoDon't even get me started on leaf blowers and lawn edgers for totally unnecessary landscaping
- Karliss 7y agoHow valid is it to make a sound measurement in direct flow of air? I am not surprised that blowing air directly in to sound measurement device causes high reading, but is the tool designed for that. Isn't it the same as saying that pressure washer causes x decibels of noise when directed in to ear? Both will probably be damaging or unpleasant.
- fwip 7y agoShe measured sound levels at the ear, not in the airflow. She specifically mentions children being shorter and likely to stand closer to the noise source, and so made readings at multiple distances.
- vbuwivbiu 7y agoSadly it's because manufacturers deliberately make them loud to make it seem like they're doing their job more. It's the same with many garden tools. Lawnmowers, leaf blowers and hedge trimmers can be made very quiet but they're deliberately made loud to make it feel like they're doing their job more.
- JabavuAdams 7y agoI damaged my right ear-drum on a short-haul flight 20 years ago. I find hand-dryers almost painfully loud, and they rattle that ear-drum in an unpleasant way. Have often thought of doing dB measurements. Way to go, kid!
- debt 7y agoGood on her for staying focused on the problem.
- 9anomaly 7y agoI've been avoiding hand dryers for years now. Mostly it's because a germaphobe friend pointed out years ago that germs are being blown onto your hand. But after reading this I think my subconscious hates the noise it makes on my over-sensitive hearing.
- jasonmp85 7y agoFor what it's worth, the two models singled out in the article are the MOST common at restaurants near me new enough to have recently reno'd their bathrooms. I don't know if they're cheap, or if they're "fancy" so they're trendy, or if it's some weird American thing about having the SUV of hand dryers, but the Xcelerator and Dyson things are _endemic_. My 6yo has been complaining about them for years and not once did I ever tell him he was wrong; in fact I've taken to just walking back to my table with wet hands and drying them off with a napkin if they're going to be serving me the shit sandwich of hearing damage for washing my hands. I think the simplest solution would be for municipalities' health departments to outlaw them, or at least set VERY conservative noise limits.
- jawns 7y agoI don't usually wish cartoonish misfortune on anybody, but I make an exception for the person who decided that the infant changing table should be installed right next to the Dyson air dryer in a certain popular retail store. That person should have a piano dropped on them. It's awesome that this young scientist decided to investigate and call attention to this issue, and even better that she's resolved to help come up with solutions!
- JimBrimble35 7y agoNot to mention studies showing that hand dryers, with the Dyson models leading the pack, do an excellent job of distributing bacteria over a large area.
- deepsun 7y ago110 dB is 10 times louder than 100 dB.