Efficient to the core
June 23rd 2008

There’s a now plethora of high speed hand dryers on the market. Dyson was the first to launch its version, the Airblade, in the UK. Dyson engineer, Marcus Hartley, worked on the Airblade since its inception. He says it stands out from the pack thanks to its digital motor. Brendan Coyne reports

We always knew we were onto a winner with the DDM – the Dyson Digital Motor – originally developed for our Japanese vacuums,” says Dyson engineer Marcus Hartley. “We designed it because at that time there weren’t any other motors on the market that gave no loss of performance. The motor became the heart and soul of the Airblade – and it’s what sets it apart from the competition.”

For any particular reason? “Being digital, the motor’s not carbon brushed. So whereas standard motors have to be filtered to stop carbon being blown back onto your hands, the digital motor doesn’t need close filters, and therefore performance doesn’t suffer as a result. We just prefilter with a HEPA, so all that passes through is pure clean air.”

Because it is brushless, the motor also suffers less wear and tear, hence the Airblade being guaranteed for five years. Hartley says this balances what, compared to the upfront cost of some competing hand dryers, is a relatively high price tag. “It’s wrong to compare us with the competition, because our product is centred around new technology as opposed to just blowing on your hands.”

But at 1600W, it’s not the lightest-rated motor on the market. If a buyer needs a new dryer, and wants it to be as energy efficient as possible, doesn’t the Airblade stand at a disadvantage when some dryers claim a 600W rating? “Not really,” says Hartley, “because at the end of the day you need a dryer that works as efficiently and effectively as possible. If it doesn’t, people won’t use it, which defeats the object. “When we started developing the Airblade we did a lot of research.

We studied loads of washrooms and found that men would wait 13 seconds before they wiped their hands on their trousers, and women around 15 seconds, which gave us a benchmark to achieve 10 seonds,” Hartley continues. “Other recent dryers, to give them their due, are a bit faster than conventional units. But people don’t want to wait 20 seconds to dry their hands. We do it in half the time, which means 10 seconds energy use as opposed to 20 seconds.”

With energy costs spiralling, and companies increasingly looking to reduce their carbon footprints, Hartley says the Airbade, and the next generation unit he is already working on (“we hope to have it out in around 18 months and deliver even more benefits”), will help drive sales. In the meantime, he says “fantastically positive” user reaction is justifying the commercial division Dyson set up especially for the Airblade.

Reducing waste and bills at EDF Energy For Mark Hoskins, Branch Facilities Manager (Customer and Corporate) at EDF Energy, reducing the environmental impact of the company’s offices and facilities is crucial. “The environmental benefits of the Airblade hand dryer for us were paramount,” he explains. “EDF Energy was getting through nine million paper towels annually across just eight sites.”

This paper towel consumption went on despite having warm air hand dryers installed in the washrooms. “Nobody used the old hand dryers because they weren’t effective,” says Hoskins. “As a company, we have now set a target to reduce our waste to landfill to zero by 2020.” After being given a demonstration of the Airblade, Hoskins purchased 125 units that were rolled out across the eight sites. The difference has been marked. “It’s incredible, we’re saving, on average, £2,800 a month now we’ve installed the Airblade,” he explains.

It’s not just the cost savings and reduction in landfill that have impressed EDF Energy. Working closely with Dyson Hoskins calculated that replacing the paper towels with the Airblade has cut EDF Energy’s carbon emissions by 49 tonnes a year. Another 40 Airblade hand dryers have subsequently been ordered for other sites. “We chose the Airblade dryer for three reasons. First, quality and performance is the best available. Second, the high level of ongoing support from the Dyson team. And third, the mutually beneficial relationship we’ve built up between EDF and Dyson, which is helping us meet our overall environmental objectives.”

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