Hand Dryer Running Costs

The choices you make about equipping the bathrooms in your building can have long term cost implications. Are electric hand dryers more or less expensive than the alternatives?

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What are the running costs of a hand dryer

When fitting out a building, budget is always a consideration.  Maximising the value that you get in all aspects of the project is essential, but it is also vitally important that you factor in the longer-term costs.  A saving today by choosing a lower priced appliance such as a hand dryer could store up problems for the future in terms of higher maintenance and operating costs.

What contributes to the running cost of a hand dryer

In most buildings, hand dryers are used multiple times each day and are a key part of hygiene for staff and visitors.  In a larger building, there may be dozens of dryers in multiple bathrooms to cater to the population of the building, and as such, the overall purchase cost could be high.  However, this should be factored against the longer-term costs.

Different types of hand dryer

There are two main kinds of hand dryer used in bathrooms.  Warm air (evaporative) dryers and more modern jet hand dryers such as the Mitsubishi Electric Wave range.  Warm air hand dryers work by blowing air at slow speed over a heating element to cause the hands to dry as the moisture evaporates into steam.  The use of a heater will result in much higher energy use.

A jet hand dryer uses a narrow beam of fast-moving air to blow water off the surface of the skin.  It does not need to have a heater which helps to reduce the amount of electricity used.

Hand Dryer Operation and Running Costs

Drying time

The process of drying your hands under an evaporative hand dryer can be slow.  On average it takes up to a minute to finish completely, and the dryer will be at full power throughout the process.

By comparison, a jet hand dryer does not need so long to work.  As the water is simply blown off the skin, the hands are dry in as little as ten seconds.

This shorter drying time means that less energy needs to be used and has the benefit of reducing the amount of time spent in the bathroom which can have a positive impact on workplace productivity.

Energy saving features

Automatic operation using a proximity sensor can help reduce hand dryer running costs.  Older hand dryer designs use a push button operation and a timer to switch them on and off.  This means that whether a user has their hands in the air flow for 10 seconds or a minute, the time at full power will be the same.  Using a sensor to detect when hands are in the drying area and switching the power on and off accordingly means that only as much energy as is needed to dry the hands is used each time.

Running costs

The combination of factors that go into the design of a hand dryer have a significant impact on the running costs.

Because they take longer to work, and use a less efficient drying method, evaporative hand dryers will cost approximately £33 annually for every 100 daily uses at the average electricity prices.  By comparison, the ultra-efficient design of the Mitsubishi Electric Wave u02 hand dryer costs approximately £11 for the same amount.

In larger buildings with high traffic to multiple bathrooms, the overall savings achieved by choosing a more efficient hand dryer can easily run into the thousands of pounds annually – particularly with the current higher prices for electricity.

Find Out More

Mitsubishi Electric Wave hand dryers are an efficient and environmentally friendly choice for bathrooms.  Speak to a member of our team today to learn more about our range or request a demonstration. Contact Us Today.

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