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I find there's three types of hand dryers: the standard kind that blows really hot air to evaporate the water, the ones that blow strongly to push the water off the hands, and the ones that are supposed to do one of these but don't. At my university almost all of the hand dryers fall into the third category.

Why are hand dryers like this, and am I somehow drying my hands wrong?

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[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 21 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Why is there bacteria on your hands after you just washed them and rinsed with clean water?

It’s actually the opposite- the issue is they shoot bacteria onto your newly cleaned hands.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-bacterial-horror-of-the-hot-air-hand-dryer-2018051113823

[-] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 days ago

Well, if you scrub your hands thoroughly with a lot of soap for at least 30 seconds it could work. Last time I saw anyone doing that was in 2021 during corona hehehe.

[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 9 points 3 days ago

Given the issue is fixed by putting HEPA filters on the intake of the dryers, it indicates the bacteria is coming from the air in the bathroom, not wet hands.

[-] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago
[-] deranger@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 days ago

That Harvard article is what I linked above. It’s where I found that the HEPA filter on the intake works well to reduce bacterial spread.

[-] notsosure@sh.itjust.works 3 points 3 days ago

You can’t expect me to read all the answers in a tread hehehe.

[-] Aeao@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

You gave the article a good and proper skim reading! Anything more in-depth is overkill. You got the gist of it that’s enough lol

this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
103 points (100.0% liked)

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