The National Gallery is saving huge amounts of energy by switching from rollers towels in its washrooms to super-efficient Mitsubishi Electric Jet Towel hand dryers.
As one of London’s premier cultural destinations the National Gallery welcomes over five million visitors a year, most of who will stay for several hours so are likely to wash their hands at least twice on site. Additionally about six hundred staff work in the Gallery, generating perhaps an additional two thousand dryer uses per day.
Jet Towels use only about one tenth the energy of conventional hot air hand dryers, which themselves are more environmental than laundering roller towels.
The secret to Jet Towels’ energy saving is that they do not need to generate a large air flow, as Mitsubishi Electric’s Fawn Litchfield explains:
“Jet Towels produce a laminar flow of high speed air which quickly blows moisture off hands straight down into a drain. By contrast a conventional dryer generates a large volume of heated air to slowly evaporate the moisture. This requires far more energy and also releases any bacteria into the atmosphere.”
The National Gallery were also very taken by the look of the Jet Towel.
Housing the 2300 piece national collection of Western European paintings from the 13th to the 19th centuries, the Gallery is open 361 days a year.
