Front line mobile crews demand equipment to meet standards and stop the spread of COVID-19
(Portland, Oregon) Portland-based Hoodworks has launched a mobile hand washing station called the Tactical Wash (TW) for mounting on trucks that support work crews. Governments around the country are announcing new job site guidelines that include social distancing and hygiene protocols like “frequent hand washing”. But for job crews that are working on construction sites with no plumbing, this was an impossibility. While guidelines sometimes permit the use of alcohol-based sanitizers when there are no other options, “soap and water is the most effective way to remove chemicals and all kinds of germs”. The CDC states that handwashing is the method that reduces the broadest range of germs, chemicals, and microbes.
Hoodworks’ TW is designed for a crew of five in a typical work truck environment. The TW bolts to a work truck permanently and can be filled in seconds with a typical garden hose. It has an aluminum water tank and a specialized anti-microbial tap that allows for micro-doses of water and minimal hand-to-metal contact. Users touch the tap to wet their hands then use a standard soap dispenser mounted inside the TW to wash hands according to CDC guidelines, dosing with water as needed. After use the tap rinses itself with water from the tank. The tank’s capacity allows for a crew of five to wash its hands every thirty minutes for a full shift, or fifteen times each, before it needs to be refilled.
“It was the Seattle Department of Transportation who originally reached out to us with this need. They had seen the Governor’s guidelines and were scrambling to make something work for the dozens of crews they have working on multiple job sites twenty-four hours a day. It was unrealistic to rely on plumbed bathrooms, and they needed something mobile” says Hoodworks’ Director Matthew Bader.
According to Bader, Hoodworks spent an enormous portion of the product development phase figuring out the best way to avoid what he calls the handling problem: “There are moveable solutions for handwashing, but a work crew is not going to haul around a giant plastic sink with a foot pump. It’s just not realistic. And the portable solutions for camping require you to hold a sprayer or container, so you’re touching and putting something away that itself can hold germs. The TW allows your last point of contact to be with a clean and sanitary surface, and nothing needs to be touched again before you get back in your truck and move to the next job.”
Hoodworks also builds the CW, or Campus Wash, designed for campus environments where students and employees need touchless handwashing without having to enter a building or existing facilities.
About Hoodworks: Hoodworks combines a meticulous and purposeful approach to vehicle design with a closely held appreciation for the transformative effects of the natural world. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, Hoodworks engineers developed the TW ™ mobile handwashing station designed to meet OSHA standards for health and safety on a work site. info@hoodworks.com / (619) 400 9001.
