Commercial industry goes hands-free
with electronic faucets and fixtures

BY TIM MILLAY

Special to The Wholesaler

Visit most public restrooms today and you’ll experience one of the commercial industry’s newest trends -- hands-free bathrooms. It’s a growing trend that can be seen in a host of new products that range from touch-free faucets and flush valves to automatic hand towel and soap dispensers. In many instances, even the bathroom doors have been removed and replaced with angled walls.

Why? The high cost of illness is just one reason. Colds, flu and infectious disease result in missed work and school days, particularly in the winter months. And washing hands, according to the Centers for Disease Control, is the most important means of reducing the spread of infection. Facility managers know this and are increasingly adding automatic and hands-free products to their restroom installations.

The cost of illness

According to the CDC, more than 10% of U.S. workers will miss three or more days of work this winter from influenza, resulting in significant lost wages and earnings each week, and, for school educators, the cost for keeping students healthy is even greater. CDC statistics show that only about two-thirds of school-aged children wash their hands after using the toilet and just one in three washes after sneezing or coughing. Because they aren’t washing the germs from their hands, those germs are more likely to be passed onto other kids. Children who washed their hands less than four times a day missed 49% more school days due to upset stomach and 76% more days due to respiratory illness than those who washed more did. If this year is typical, kids will miss 22 million days of school because of colds alone, according to the CDC.

Ideal for commercial setting and designed with convienence in mind, Moen's Commercial Division offers hygienic and cost-effective FreeHand electronic sensor faucets, which feature hands-free activation.

Electronic sensor faucets, like the FreeHand™ faucet series from Moen, make it easier and more hygienic to effectively wash hands. The water goes on when it’s needed and turns off automatically. Because hands no longer touch anything, there is less chance to spread germs. Plus, the sensor automatically limits water flow so there is less water waste and less chance for overflow and mess.

Significant cost savings

The hands-free trend results in significant energy and water cost-savings as well. Adding electronic sensor faucets and electronic flush valves in toilets and urinals can bring in the greatest water savings. One leaky faucet -- dripping one drip per second -- wastes 36 gallons of water a day.

With that in mind, more commercial, healthcare and educational facilities are looking to electronic hands-free products to reduce the number of gallons used daily, while providing significant energy savings due to limited hot water consumption.

Additional cost savings come from reduced maintenance time and fees in repairing the hands-free faucets. Some manufacturers, such as Moen, have introduced “lifetime savings” with parts and components that eliminate the need for continual replacement. This benefit cuts down on the need for product inventory and inventory management, which in turn reduces repair/replacement budgets.

By choosing high-quality electronic sensoring faucets and fixtures, facility managers can decrease overall operating costs by reducing repair frequencies and training and save water and sewage operating costs, all the while improving the hygienic environment of the facility.

So, consider taking a hands-off approach to your faucets and fixtures: You will end up with a healthier facility and realize significant water and energy savings as well.

Tim Millay is director of commercial sales at Moen Incorporated. For more information, call 800/321-8809 or visit www.moen.com/commercial.