We may have to replace what is in suite #102. Which do you prefer, the Gojo (silver and square) or the Uline (black and rounded) soap dispensers?
- Gojo (silver)
- Uline (black)
- No preference
- Something else (please comment)
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Those that hold more soap. Even though I have seen the cleaning crew and many members fill them, they always seemed empty.
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Uline stuff is expensive.
Jim, metalshop chair likes Summit products. They do racing stuff. You might see what they have. They seem to be affordable too.
Just a note that we have been refilling both with soap from Walmart. We may have to purchase official refills once in a long while as the cartridge wears out.
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Liquid soap is curiously expensive stuff.
Touchless dispensers are convenient but have added burdens:
- The bladders are proprietary non-refillable things that go for an even bigger premium than bulk liquid soap
- They also demand battery replacement ~quarterly
Hand pump dispensers can use pretty much whatever soap we want in cheaper gallon containers. But they’re also a little vexing since they’re designed for ~6" of head rather than the ~18" a more convenient-to-the-maintainer arrangement uses with flex tubing.
The broad insistence upon using touchless dispensers seems to limit our options here; they don’t seem to get much larger than ~32oz in a wall-mount formfactor. Perhaps there are some other options out there that we haven’t researched, but I expect those to require a more involved installation at greater cost.
I use dish detergent at home because a minute amount does more work than a full pump of liquid hand soap. There is however a need for some recongnition on the user’s behalf of the greater potency of dish detergent vs hand soap : a drop is all it takes most of the time. Using more potent soap and effectively communicating this to users may prove difficult.
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Regular soap, as noted touchless with refills being perhaps “Walmart” or similar, works OK today though I like the idea of large capacity if possible.
I’d like to see some additional “heavy duty” soap dispensers scattered about. Having just the one in the laundry room will become more cumbersome.
The parts probably last longer on touchless. No way for people to press too hard when there’s no mechanical interface point.
That said, the total cost of ownership (TCO) comparison of a more long-lived dispenser vs a cheaper one that can take any soap and no batteries is something that may require a spreadsheet and some real-world empiricism to determine. Maybe we should just fab up some of our own from billet aluminum. 
Kind of a wash (heh) for me either way, since I only ever seem to need abrasive soap for when I forget to glove up on cars.
Two types of soap: heavy duty abrasive type that is in Janitor’s closet for washing in the sink. Other for in restrooms.
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I agree there’s no simple, obvious answer.
From past experience I think I can state with confidence that the cheaper varieties of pump intended for installation in a residential kitchen or bathroom have lifespan issues. They also have pretty hard limits on how much lift they can handle since they’re designed around using the smallest of reservoirs no deeper than the fixed intake pipe they ship with. Add in the fact that they’re designed around servicing from the top and the durability/lift issues are further compounded.
Commercial hand-pump dispensers seem to live forever - can’t say I’ve noticed any major issues with the ones in the offices I’ve worked in. But they also pull from reservoirs rather than bulk soap containers so no idea on if they can manage 18" of lift gracefully.
The touchless dispensers are only competitive because we cheat by refilling the bladders that are expressly designed to be single-use; otherwise we’d be paying something like $20 per ~32oz refill. The present dispensers allow for this; suspect that other makes and/or subsequent generations of our current model will make our workaround more difficult. The manufacturers have some incentive to do this since refills essentially allow them to print money. Insofar as lifespan they’ve held up despite low-voltage DC motors and actuators perpetually sounding like they’re on the verge of failure. Batteries lasting for multiple months suggests that they’re a rounding cost on the soap itself lasting perhaps a week; as much as I hold disposable alkaline cells in disdain, it’s going to be a long ROI and additional step(s) to purchase and maintain rechargeable cells.
Something more like this
seems like it would fit the bill for either liquid soaps or pumice soaps in containers up to 4 or so gallons
like this
or this
or this
If we must have “prettier” ones in the restrooms, how about something sensible, like 2 or 3 of these screwed to the wall?
But in the end, I say anything that does NOT require batteries gets my vote before anything which does. I’d actually rather have this
than battery ops…
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My “other”…
https://www.google.com/search?q=ivory+bar+soap+unscented
With a dish artistically crafted in fired arts. Or machined from aluminum with the HAAS. Or crafted from wood using the MultiCam. Or printed (then sealed) using a PloyPrinter. Or…
Interestingly, a 4 pack is nearly twice the unit cost of one.
I noticed that too. But I imagine it’s simple enough to buy as many lower-priced single-packs as one wants if the 'zon is going to subject buyers to a bulk penalty.
I am pretty sure that I still have a dinosaur soap dish ceramic mold somewhere.
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This might be a worthy makery solution to have a solar powered soap dispenser with a gallon soap reservoir feeding the standard reservoir.
It could be interesting to feed the soap into the dispenser with a “crazy straw” feed.
Solar power. Blah blah blah. Batteries can charge off of overhead lights. I do not know if they would charge enough. However, if the panel were big enough 3’ x 6’ … LOL.
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You know – maybe the problem is that we’re trying for one solution to fit all. Maybe we need touchless dispensers for those with touching issues, and a nice big pump soap for the rest of us who realize that we have immune systems that function pretty well.
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A possibility for Logistics to consider.
My experience was handling this solo, so the parallel maintenance would have been an unwanted additional task. Suspect it would also drive up costs a bit more due to the realities of splitting a user base.
However, I’m not involved any more so I’m not going to argue against it strongly either.
I do wish that there were more non anti-bacterial options on the market since those products have been repeatedly demonstrated to be ineffective at preventing infection vs ordinary soap but perform marvels making bacteria more hardy.
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September 2, 2016
Events a bit more than a month later altered agency priorities, perhaps?
EDIT: Well that was a bit premature and troll-ish of me. Appears that a ruling was finalized December 2017:
https://www.fda.gov/newsevents/newsroom/fdainbrief/ucm589474.htm
Triclosan - the most common - is out. And perhaps it’s been that long since I’ve shopped for liquid hand soap that the market has changed since the ruling.
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