Scrub Sinks | June 13th, 2009 | Author: admin

Hot water and scrub sinks

There is a rumor going around that Doctors – specifically surgeons – are notoriously impatient. I’m still gathering evidence to form my own opinion. But the idea of waiting for hot water before they scrub into a case can easily be seen as something that might be irritating. On a recent project, this was the scenario:

• Scrub sinks. These scrub sinks used were hands free infrared units with an internal timer.
• The faucets selected by the plumber were low-flow, to save water and prevent “splashing”. (Yes, these were CFCI vitreous china sinks with plumbing fixtures, not the all-in-one stainless steel units.)
• The hot water supply line is on a recirculating pump to the farthest point, but the scrub sinks are on individual feeds off of this main supply about 20 feet away.

Here is the process we found: The surgeon arrives to scrub into the case. He activates the sink and gets cold water. The internal timer times out and the surgeon must re-activate the flow of water. This time the water is just starting to get warm. On the third try, the water is hot and so is the surgeons mood. At the adjacent scrub sink alcove , this process repeats itself.

Lesson Learned:

Placing all of the scrub sinks on the same recirculating loop will help keep the hot water flowing instantly. This way, running the water in scrub sink location #1 is moving the hot water in the same pipes as scrub sink locations 2, 3, etc. This will save on the wasted water going down the drain from the first few attempts at warm water and give the docs one less thing to complain about. Other solutions might be placing insta-hot units at each sink location.

My Opinion:

On this topic of conversation, a better solution is the knee operated sink. It still keeps the controls off the floor so clean-up is easy and has less chance of breakdown. The infrared units are notoriously finicky and timers can be outfitted on the knee operated units easily.

Tags: Infrared, Scrub Sink

Copyright 2009 GARNERRESOURCES, All Rights Reserved.