10 Features Your Commercial Bathroom Needs
Ambient Lighting Systems
Did you know that lighting plays a significant role in how occupants perceive your commercial restroom environment? There are four types of lighting that impact the human brain in different ways-task, accent, decorative, and ambient. Ambient lighting-often the warmest temperature-is ideal for spaces such as lavatories, as this form of illumination puts an individual at ease.
You can equip your commercial facilities with warm and soft lighting systems to provide a more welcoming and comfortable environment for building occupants. If possible, supplement your ambient lighting with natural light sources to enhance the space's diffusion, creating a more relaxing atmosphere. Additionally, consider lighting your bathroom's mirrors to provide the illusion of a larger space.
Aside from prioritizing calming, ambient light sources, ensure you install an energy-efficient lighting system throughout your commercial bathroom. These systems are often motion- or time-activated, helping to decrease your business's energy consumption and overall carbon footprint. Investing in energy-efficient lighting systems can save your building tremendously on utility expenses, and they are especially useful in restrooms that see high amounts of traffic, such as schools or facilities open to the public.
Automated Hand Soap Dispensers
Are your countertops and handwashing stations constantly covered in discarded soap? This is actually a very common issue for most commercial restrooms that allow patrons to dispense their own quantities of soap. A smart and effective method for resolving this complication is to install automated hand soap dispensers around your handwashing stations to control soap distribution.
Along with keeping your countertops cleaner, these devices help reduce resource expenses. Since automatic hand soap dispensers expel pre-programmed quantities of soap, your business's restocking costs are significantly decreased. As a bonus, the automated nature of these soap dispensers helps eradicate cross-contamination and slows the spread of illness throughout your building.
Sensor-Activated Sink Faucets
Similar to automated hand soap dispensers, sensor-activated sink faucets help maintain a cleaner restroom environment overall. These devices reduce the chances of a bathroom patron overfilling the sink bowl and spilling large quantities of water onto the countertops or floor.
More importantly, automatic sink faucets dramatically decrease cross-contamination and help fight the spread of bacteria, viruses, and illnesses throughout your building. Furthermore, advanced faucets help lower your building's water and energy consumption, minimizing utility expenses.
Touch-Free Paper Towel Dispensers
Invest in touch-free paper towel dispensers to effectively minimize cross-contamination within your handwashing stations. These paper towel dispensers are often sensor-activated, helping to conserve resources per patron and eliminate the need for touching a common surface. Having one or two touch-free paper towel dispensers in your restroom to supplement a line of hand-drying units is an affordable and effective way to maintain a more sanitary and inviting bathroom environment.
Modern Hand Drying Units
Not all hand-drying units are created equal. In fact, if you have hand dryers manufactured before the early 2000s, chances are it's time to swap out your units in favor of modern replacements. This is because newer hand dryer models are specifically designed to provide better hygiene assistance without overconsuming power.
Traditional hand dryers are notorious for draining high amounts of energy and producing subpar, even unsanitary, results. Similar to the other automated restroom features on this list, investing in quality hand dryers can minimize three major elements-carbon footprint, cross-contamination, and high energy expenses. Remember to supplement your hand-drying units with a touch-free paper towel dispenser for additional patron convenience.
High-Performance Flush Valves
Let's focus on the one area of your commercial bathroom that, arguably, matters the most-your toilets. No patron wants to use an underperforming toilet that struggles to remove waste and is prone to malfunctions or downtime. Therefore, it's essential that you invest in high-performance flush valves from reputable, industry-leading suppliers.
Advanced flush valves and valve equipment are more durable and capable of handling heavy usage, making them better suited for high-volume water closets. You can even purchase tankless flush valves for increased restroom convenience. If you upgrade your flush valves and still notice underperformance, consider consulting with a licensed plumber, as the problem may be with your plumbing infrastructure itself.
Urinal Mats & Toilet Floor Coverings
Along with sink countertops, commercial restroom floors are often very unsanitary areas, especially around toilets and urinals. Instead of spending a ton of money and labor to constantly clean these mess-prone areas, consider putting down protective mats and floor coverings. Urinal and toilet mats are thick, anti-bacterial floor coverings designed to catch water and urine, preserving the hygiene and quality of your restroom floors. Furthermore, these pads are easy to discard and replace or clean and re-install. Urinal mats are ideal for school restrooms with high volumes of younger children who may not yet possess proper bathroom hygiene.
Automated Air Fresheners
Inevitably, bathrooms will smell unpleasant from time to time despite constant cleaning services. However, you can ensure fresh scents throughout the day by installing automated air fresheners throughout your commercial facilities. These devices disperse pre-programmed quantities of new fragrances to mask and eliminate foul odors like urine and mildew. Choose a soft, non-offensive scent when selecting a fragrance for your lavatories, such as lavender or citrus.
Free Access to Menstrual Products
Including a tampon vending machine or another menstrual product dispenser within your commercial restroom is a moral-and sometimes legal-obligation. Supplying free menstrual products for bathroom patrons can benefit your occupants and the building itself.
For example, this free access helps destroy outdated stigmas associated with menstrual products, ensures proper care for anyone who needs it, and keeps individuals more focused on productive endeavors, such as working, learning, etc. Check your local laws to see whether free access to menstrual products is required in your commercial restroom; if not, consider installing a tampon vending machine anyway.
Ambient Music
While inappropriate for certain settings, such as a school or government building restroom, a little ambient music can tremendously increase the bathroom experience for building occupants. A background playlist of soothing instrumentals can put patrons at ease and help them achieve more comfortable and productive bathroom visits. Consider placing an affordable Bluetooth speaker in the corner of your commercial lavatories, or invest in a built-in audio system.
Air Delights
