Are Modern Hand Dryers Quieter

Unwanted noise in a building can affect concentration and cause problems for people nearby. Choosing a more modern jet hand dryer could help you reduce distractions from excess noise around bathrooms.

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Quieter Modern Hand Dryers

Conventional warm air hand dryers have a design that makes them extremely noisy in operation, and aside from creating a disturbance in areas close to bathrooms, their use can be daunting for small children and other people who are sensitive to sound.  Choosing more modern quiet hand dryers such as the Mitsubishi Electric Wave i01 hands-in dryer can reduce the amount of noise present to create a more pleasant and quieter environment.

Why Are Older Hand Dryers Noisy

Most older hand dryers use the same method to dry a user’s hands.  Slow moving air is blown over a heating element to create a slow-moving breeze over the skin.  This warm air, coupled with the action of rubbing the hands together spreads the water from washing over the skin so that it can evaporate.  Such designs can generate a lot of noise – up to 87dB, which is the equivalent of heavy traffic nearby.

There are two main factors that contribute to the noise:

Exposed Internal Components

The need for a large vent for the air to flow through after passing over the heating element in an evaporative hand dryer means that there is nothing stopping the sound of the motor and fan from being amplified into the surrounding area.  While it is possible to add some sound damping to the body of the dryer, the large vent means that most sound will still escape.

Turbulent Airflow Creates Hand Dryer Noise

As the air is blown out of the nozzle it forms a relatively wide stream.  Wider streams of air have more space for chaotic turbulence and vortexes to form.  As the various streams of air come together, they generate additional sound and can amplify the internal noises from the motor and cause it to spread in different directions.

Another factor that can worsen the sonic impact of older hand dryers is the time taken to dry the hands – an average of 35 seconds.  This long duration means that any noise is present for a significant amount of time, and in a busy bathroom, may create an almost constant disturbance in the surrounding area.

Quieter Modern Hand Dryers

The design of the Mitsubishi Electric Wave range means that the flaws in a conventional hand dryer that create loud noise are no longer present, and as a result, they make much less sound – in use, the Wave i01 generates just 57dB of noise – the equivalent of a normal conversation.

Mitsubishi Electric Wave hand dryers work by directing the air into a narrow jet that blows water off the surface of the skin.

This narrow jet of air is much less turbulent than with a conventional hand dryer, and as a result, generates far fewer soundwaves when the device is in use.

A further advantage of the narrow jet design is that it largely masks the sound from the fan and motor.  The internal aerodynamics of the dryers mean that less noise is carried on the air, and it is confined to the airstream rather than escaping into the surrounding areas.

Jet hand dryers are much faster in use than conventional warm air dryers.  The u02 takes approximately 10 seconds to dry the hands fully.  As a result, the duration of sound is much shorter, and cuts off as soon as the user removes their hands from the drying area.  This means that there is much less disturbance in the surrounding area, and even in busy bathrooms the sound will rarely escape into nearby areas where it can be a distraction.

Find Out More

For more information about choosing a quieter hand dryer for your workplace and reduce your energy costs, we can help.  Request a demonstration by contacting a member of our team today or download our brochures.

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