Everywhere I go, mechanical paper-towel dispensers are being replaced with fancy new ones, with motion-detectors – you wave your hand in front of it, and it spits out a foot of paper towel.
:rolleyes:
Whee. We’re in the 21st century now, boy!
I’m no luddite, but is this filling some desperate need that I don’t see?
That’s bizarre. It’s supposed to keep you from touching something you’d touch anyway, ie. the paper towel? Yes, definitely worth a :rolleyes:
Ye Olde Fashioned towel dispensers depended on someone putting stacks of interlocked towels in the cabinets. As I learned working in the paper distribution business, the towel manufacturers make the towel slightly smaller every few years and they end up being just a tad too small for the dispensers. There’s always the chance someone will pull on one towel only to have a bunch fall out and get soiled.
The mechanized version gives you one at a time. If you want another, just wave your hand under and there you go.
The company will save money in the long run by buying the mechanized dispensers.
No, it’s supposed to keep you from touching the dispenser itself–presumably a surface touched by dozens of dirty hands before you. Arguably pointless, since you still have to touch the faucet, soap dispenser, flush handle and door handles which have all been touched by dozens of dirty hands before you, anyway.
I like them. Whenever I use the ones with the little pull down handle I have to reach up for it and then the water on my hand runs down my arm into my sleeve. Yuck. I’ve often thought they hang them so high on purpose so that you use less towels. :dubious: And if you get your towels before you wash your hands the other patrons tend to become unhappy. 
In my limited experience, it seems the dispensed length is always a couple of inches too short. So I get another, and get 75% more towel than I really need.
That’s only one kind. There is another which dispenses roll towels, by having the patron turn a crank. If your threory about cost was the real issue, then this type–which uses nearly identical roll towels–would be preferred, since it doesn’t necessitate the changing of batteries, is less prone to electrical/mechanical failure and costs much less initially.
If the leading towel gets stuck (in the regular dispenser), you’d (the collective you, that is) be tempted to reach into the dispenser and grab a towel and you’d end up getting a huge wad of towels which you’d likely throw away.
And if the automatic one jams, you get no towel. That’s better, how? 
Unfortunately, my experience was that these were generally poorly constructed and jammed quite a lot. Another downside (again, in my experience) was that the maintenance people hated these kinds and didn’t like to refill them. It wasn’t like it was rocket science, but it did take a couple minutes more than the individual dispensers.
No towel = no cost!
Some places went with hand dryers. Others balked at those because they had to be hard-wired by an electrician.
Only a couple of inches? You’re lucky. I generally need three or four to efficiently absorb enough water to make my hands feel thoroughly dry. And the ones I have used are designed not to dispense another towel until you’ve torn off the first one, so I have to stand there impatiently tearing off one towel and activating the sensor for another one.
Old-fashioned dispenser: bam, bam, bam. I have three towels in three fell swoops.
Touchless dispenser: position hand, wait through lag time, wait for towel to dispense, tear towel off, wait for machine to reset, reposition hand, wait through lag time, wait for towel to dispense, tear towel off, wait for machine to reset, reposition hand, wait through lag time, wait for towel to dispense, tear towel off.
Yeah, I like the old-fashioned ones better.
i was in a fully automated bathroom once. it was in an eye hospital. toilet, water, soap, towel; all sensored.
i really had to fight the urge to go “orchestra conductor” in there. it was rather fun.
To my sleep deprived brain, half operating at 4+ in the morning, that was absolutely hilarious. I would most definitely not have been able to fight that urge, nor will I should I ever find myself in such a bathroom.
I like 'em. Of course, for those who don’t, it might be because *you *don’t have a three year old daughter. Mine thinks I’m able to command the paper towel to appear with a snap of my fingers (which I snap under the motion sensor, of course)! I think it’s just too bad they don’t have them in more places so that I can do this more often (but then, she might catch on quicker, so maybe it’s a good thing!).
Bloody hand dryers, can’t stand them. They never dry your hands thoroughly, and you end up having to backslap a complete stranger and use his shirt to really dry your hands.
The automatic towel dispensers don’t bother me at all. What really bothered me were the automatic toilet flushers. How the hell are you supposed to give a courtesy flush? You sit there and you wiggle side to side, but it doesn’t work. So then you have to do a quick, stand-up-sit-down maneuver but that doesn’t work, either. So now you stand up, do a quick little dance to get it to flush then sit down again.
It’s a good way to solve the problem of filthy savages not flushing after a monster dump, but they need to have a manual option on there, too.
Worknig in a hospital, they teach you the “proper” way to wash your hands. After you flush, you turn on the hot and cold water. Get your hand wet, then get alittle bit of soap. From this point on, you hands will not touch anything that is not clean. Lather the soap ince and good, making sure to get inbetween your fingers, undernaeth your naisl, etc…Then, rinse off the soap. Now, leave the water running, and get the towels you need (and yes, this place has autoamtic dispensers.) After your hands are dry, get another towel, and use it to turn off the faucets and then to open the door to the bathroom.
A lot of automatic toilets have a manual override button.
Our office has automatic toilets, soap and water, but no towels. I hate the automatic soap dispensers, because when you’re rinsing your hands under the water, it’s hard to keep your reflection from activating the soap. So you dump about half a dozen squirts of soap into the sink (or worse, get it on your sleeve.)
make that, “but not towels.” They do have paper towels in there.