So I was washing my hands after using a toilet, and realised that when I turned the water off again I'd be touching a tap covered in the very germs I'd just been washing off.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a separate clean tap and dirty tap? Well it's kind of gross when you put it like that, but whatever. Also separate taps don't work, but two handles on the same tap would, two lever thingies sticking out from the centre of rotation. If you start with dirty hands, you turn on the tap with the "dirty" handle, wash your hands, and turn it off with the "clean" handle.

The two handles on each tap get labelled "clean" and "dirty" so everyone knows which is which. Oh man this is hilarious! People might be grossed out by these due to the dirty side, but then they'd think about how regular taps were even worse so... I don't know what would happen.
-- caspian, Aug 02 2011

just use foot faucets and forget about your hands http://www.footfaucet.net/
[xandram, Aug 05 2011]

Study of electronic sensor taps https://www.hopkins...l_infection_control
Great idea - if it only worked [lurch, Aug 05 2011, last modified Jun 11 2021]

Stop worrying. If you insulate yourself from common bacteria, the first dose you get will kill you. Constant low level exposure is the best defence.

For contributing to the 'clean' myth [-]
-- Twizz, Aug 02 2011


I'm pretty sure I know what would happen. The "dirty" handle would be the cleanest thing in the place, because everyone would use the "clean" handle so they aren't exposed to everyone elses bacteria.
-- MechE, Aug 02 2011


Tear off some paper towel before you begin washing your hands and use it to "protect" your clean hands from the bacterial minefield you perceive to be on the taps. If the washroom uses air dryers instead of paper towel, don't worry. The combination of heat and rapidly-moving air from the dryer will kill off any nasty germs you might pick up! (I promise...)
-- Canuck, Aug 02 2011


Touchless?
-- RayfordSteele, Aug 02 2011


The design of hand-washing sinks was perfected years ago (and this isn't it); the problem is, you never find them outside hospitals. What you do find outside hospitals, though, is those annoying "no touch" faucets with motion sensors. Which is still better than this idea, which fails if even one person carelessly touches the wrong tap.
-- mouseposture, Aug 02 2011


Slight variation: one tap that can only turn on the water and another tap that can only turn off the water.
-- xaviergisz, Aug 02 2011


[Twizz] Guilty as charged, but note this can be used for cleaning of other stuff apart from germs too. Say you work with clay, you're going to get clay all over the tap, or just the dirty side with my system.

I suppose the advantage of the regular system is we all carry out our obsessive cleanliness ritual without causing the problems we would if it were more effective.

[mouseposture] Are the perfect hand-washing sinks ones with long handles you can push with your elbows? I vaguely remember that from some tv hospital.
-- caspian, Aug 03 2011


[xaviergisz] there may be a mechanism to do that, but it doesn't seem simple - unless you go digital and use buttons.
-- caspian, Aug 03 2011


I could be wrong but I think he means a foot-pedal caspian.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 03 2011


Baked
The lever arm tap!
You push one side to turn it on, and the other side to turn it of.
Ps old tashion brass taps, door knobs etc are toxic to bacteria. Silver is even better.
-- j paul, Aug 03 2011


[caspian] No, those are pretty good, but they're only second best. The perfect ones are located just outside the operating room, and look like horse troughs.
-- mouseposture, Aug 03 2011


// you never find them outside hospitals //

No, they tend to be inside. If they were outside, they'd get dirty.

What you actually mean is, "you never find them in places other than hospitals", which is in fact untrue; the same style of "scrub room" sanitary fixtures are used in both meat processing plants, and nuclear installations.
-- 8th of 7, Aug 05 2011


//just use foot faucets and forget about your hands //

Just get wet feet, instead?
-- Ling, Aug 05 2011


[21Quest]// what's wrong with well-designed sensor taps [...] ? // Well, that's a good question. The <linked> article, about a study at John Hopkins University, found that sensor taps harbor far more bacteria *inside* the faucet. The 'why?' part is still under consideration, but they're looking at the combination of those faucets having more internal surfaces, more complex-shaped internal surfaces (read 'hiding places'), and better water efficiency (read 'less water flushing out stuff').

Anyway - as a result of their study, Johns Hopkins *removed* all touchless taps from patient areas.
-- lurch, Aug 05 2011


//is in fact untrue// [caspian] has, in fact, never found them outside hosptials, so the statment was true. But only literally.
-- mouseposture, Aug 06 2011


wot, an inverted-J spout with flap handles? I've got one in the bathroom. Seemed the most logical way to avoid gumming up the handles with grease and stuff and the spout never gets dirty. Couldn't find an elbow-operated one though (for a reasonable price).

A plague of boils on whoever invented the integrated sink-stopper.
-- FlyingToaster, Aug 06 2011


// wot, an inverted-J spout with flap handles? I've got one in the bathroom //

That's what I put in mine. Well, they didn't have flap handles, but I've quarter-turn levers instead of screw-type round handles. I put that in my dad's bathroom, too, and have a sink sitting out in the garage that I got at a yard sale with similar arrangement. The low, short faucets with round knobs are just silly.

This idea might work if you put the levers one above the other, otherwise room for turning is going to be an issue.
-- baconbrain, Aug 06 2011


// so the statment was true. But only literally //

[marked-for-tagline]
-- 8th of 7, Aug 06 2011



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