Jet Engine Hand Driers

Oi! I've had it with rest area bathroom hand driers. Anyone else feel this way? Walked into a bathroom recently at a rest stop and was hit with about 130 dB of atrocious fan echoing throughout entire bathroom. Pretty hard to take a leak while holding your ears. Ugh!!!

 

I hate those hand driers, and they are loud, but NO WAY are they 130 db loud! Maybe 10o db max. Still too loud though.

 

People look at me funny when I don't dry my hands after, but aside from the hearing damage, all those machines do is spray germs all over the place, eww...

 

They blow fecal bacteria over your hands.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...em-all-over-your-hands-study-finds/511723002/

 

Drip drying is the way forwards!

 

I just shake my hands vigorously for them to dry.

 

Agree entirely - really painful.

 

Never enter a public bathroom unless you are wearing earplugs or earmuffs.

 

Dyson is the loudest.

 

they annoyed the shit out of me for the first few years and caused physical pain if I managed to get real close to them, but I basically ignore them now and they do not bother me anymore. I will use a dyson with no earplugs, lacking paper towels, but I sure wouldn't want to have a job handing out mints in a bathroom.

Most of these machines are not actually that loud, and the loudest are significantly less than 100db:

https://www.restroomdirect.com/hand-dryer-noise-levels.aspx

The XELERATORs are far and away the loudest, to a point that concerns have been expressed: http://www.hearingreview.com/2015/10/news-report-exposes-harmful-noise-levels-modern-hand-dryers/.

Usually I have 12db filters in when I use them, but that's just because the only place I really use bathrooms like this is highway rest stops, and I drive with 12db filters because dirt roads, spiked tires and rock & roll through the car audio system.

 

It must have been Dyson. It sounded like a hurricane ripping the roof off.

 

Bill, do you recommend earmuffs which amplify the ambient noise or have you tried those?

 

Maybe it was an Xelerator. Who knows. I didn't want to get close to the thing to look. It was as loud as a bus or truck letting off air on it's brakes, but continuously of course.

 

Truck brake air at a distance of 3' appears to be about 90db, so that seems accurate. Yeah, I do not like that brand, generally don't use them, easily twice as loud as a dyson. Still not something that I'm personally worried about walking by, because I've walked by a lot of them in the last 10 years and the tinnitus is the same as ever, but they are certainly obnoxious. Possibly I subconsciously tend to plug the ear on the closer side right as I walk by it, that's about it.

I think you're dredging up some PTSD for me, I have barely thought about truck and bus brake squeal in the 2 years since I gave up on cities

 

With you there bud. I'm totally going to leave the city after all the hellacious loud noises. It might take awhile.

Off topic: what do all the people in the country do for a living?!? I want to do what they do. This probably needs a separate thread.

 

I work from home making software, for the same company I worked for most recently when I lived in the city.

The people who live around here do all sorts of things, though, from the very calm and quiet (patrolling state park trails for dangers/animals/trash/etc) to the extremely loud and dangerous (lumberjacking is the second most deadly vocation in the US, after prostitution, and is also pretty bad for your ears). Many people around here supplement their income with various odd things; cost of living is relatively high here, given that it's quite rural, so it's not unusual to have someone who runs a logging & firewood company who also plows driveways during the winter, or even stuff like young lawyers who have a commercial maple syrup operation on the side.

Often I go to the bathroom in the woods, which has a surprising lack of hand dryers....

 

I have tried only Peltor X5A and X4A muffs...

 

Very interesting. I've always wondered about cost of living in the country. If I was living there now I'd take the job of maintaining hand driers at rest stops (read: disconnecting, removing and beating to death with baseball bat).

 

Some college professors are able to live in the country, near minor universities/colleges.

 

So @Bill Bauer do people look at you funny when they see you enter the bathroom with your Peltor ear muffs on, or do they run out of the bathroom thinking you are about to do some major damage?!

 

I have been wearing earplugs at rest area washrooms. But you are right - whenever I wear Peltor muffs in public (e.g., I had worn them at airports), I can't believe that the people around me don't seem to be worried about me opening fire.

 

actual mass shooters seem really unworried about their ears. Now, if you started writing body armor...

 

I have some construction ear muffs laying around so I took Bill's advice and brought those for our next road trip. They are blue and look like giant eggs. At the first rest stop the only people who took notice were my wife and son who thought I looked hilarious. I did think people would be worried I had a bomb or something but no one gave a hoot.

It was great. I was not accosted by any loud hand driers or toilet lids crashing.

As soon as we got back on the road while driving with the windows down some motorcycles ripped by my side loud as f. #*__<!!?&!###

 

Is there any move to ban these extremely loud piercing hand dryers in restrooms? Perhaps by ATA?

Tinnitus is a disability that is just not recognized by the general public. I will gladly support such a movement!

I can’t even block my ears because I also wear hearing aids for hearing loss. Aside from magnifying the noise, covering my ears does nothing when they are in. I find myself taking the hearing aids out partially. Then I go running from the restroom without washing my hands as several of these dryers explode with noise at the same time.

And of course people think I must be crazy! Ugh!