Modernising Secondary School Washrooms

The summer months and school holidays are naturally the perfect time to consider modernising School Washrooms and undertaking renovation works. Many secondary schools, upper schools, sixth forms and academies are beginning to embrace more contemporary, grown-up washroom designs making this a perfect time to contact our School Toilet Refurbishment Team.

Modernising your secondary school washrooms not only creates a more distinguished, smart appearance to your facilities but can also significantly improve their durability and ease of cleaning.

Economic Options To Consider
Secondary school washrooms are incredibly high traffic environments and so even the smallest water saving, over the course of a year, can result in healthy economic savings. Sensor activated washroom features are a key area to focus your attention in this respect. Sensor taps only emit water whilst hands are beneath them, breaking the sensor beam. This reduces the risk of taps left on or even taps that aren’t closed properly. When sensor taps are combined with sensor activated flush kits, not only do you conserve water, but hygiene is improved significantly as users never have to touch washroom fittings.

Another item that is becoming increasingly popular is waterless urinals. Waterless urinals are still plumbed into mains drainage, but rather than being cleansed with running water, the urinal is sanitised by a clever filter cartridge alongside regular, routine cleaning. You can even convert existing urinals to be waterless. In high traffic washroom environments, each waterless urinal can save you up to £400 per year in water and sewerage charges.

An Eye For Design
The days of ‘bog standard’ are long gone and today even the coolest looking washroom facilities do not necessarily cost more than your traditional washroom furniture. With this in mind, the school washrooms can now be brought to life a bit more and feature some smart looking items.

Wash troughs are a great focal point to washrooms and come in a variety of different styles. The Armitage Shanks Broadway Washing Trough is as streamlined as they come and is suitable for up to three users. Combined with wall mounted sensor taps, this feature alone can drastically change the look of your washroom facilities, bringing them up to a modern and stylish standard.

Staying Traditional
However, with all this talk of modern, contemporary and streamlined washrooms, this isn’t to say that the more traditional washroom isn’t also still popular. Individual washbasins and back to wall toilets are the mainstay of school washrooms across the land. Updating taps, hand dryers and flushing systems goes a long way to modernising and improving your commercial facilities from the perspective of hygiene through to durability.

Durability and Anti Vandal Features
Wear and tear, accidental damage and vandalism is naturally something that needs to be considered in high traffic commercial washrooms. To begin with, all pipework can be securely concealed within integrated plumbing system panels. By using IPS panel systems, you are left with just the urinal on the wall or the toilet against the wall with the cistern and all pipework and waste hidden from view. As well as protecting this hardware, it also makes for smooth, sharp lines making your washroom look smart and slick, but also making it easier to clean.

There are also urinals available like the Franke Stainless Steel Urinal Concealed Bowl, a metal urinal that is designed to shelter all integral pipework, fitting flush to the wall.

Sensor taps come into play here again as they prevent flood damage and cannot accidentally be left on. Deck mounted sensor taps are available which have no exposed edges for leverage, meaning they cannot be forcefully removed or damaged.

Give Thought To The Cubicles
Washroom cubicles can sometimes be overlooked and seen as a one size fits all type of affair. However, our cubicles are custom made for each individual location and come in a huge variety of different colours and laminated finishes. This allows you to deliver some real character and style to your facilities, purely just from the cubicles themselves. Cubicles can also be installed full height, meaning there is no gap between the top of the cubicle door and the ceiling. This gives more privacy to users and can give a clean, smart finish to the washroom.

It is worth remembering that integrated plumbing system panels, cubicles, wall panels and even vanity units can all be made of the same materials which makes for consistency. This fully moisture resistant material also enables easy cleaning.

Dispensers & Waste Disposal
Soap dispensers, drying facilities and waste and sanitary disposal should all be given the same attention to detail when modernising your secondary school washrooms. Wall mounted, recessed options tend to look very smart and non-intrusive. Some items like the Franke Recessed Paper Towel Dispenser and Waste Bin work brilliantly to combine more than one of these essentials in the same place. Paper towels, however, need to be replaced frequently and the waste produced from them can be significant. Powerful hand dryers are a great alternative with models like the Dyson Airblade and the;Biodrier Bio Lite High Speed Energy Efficient Dryer being regular favourites in many school washroom refurbishment projects.

In Summary
There’s a lot to consider when modernising or refurbishing secondary and upper school washrooms. However, keeping things sharp and simple will keep things easy to clean. There are economic options available such as sensor taps and all are worthy of your consideration and research as almost all of them not only have economic savings, but improve usability and hygiene throughout. Don't overlook the importance of dispensers and waste disposal and be sure to give thought to the finish and style of your washroom cubicles.