Hand Wash Station Rental in Philadelphia

Start with the food. Every food vendor or booth that handles open food needs hand washing of its own, close to where the food is handled, not a walk across the field. A caterer behind a tent at a wedding needs its own station even if the guests have one by the restrooms.

Then the restrooms. A station at every cluster of porta potties keeps people from walking back to the crowd with dirty hands. For a big event, a two-sided station serves two at a time and cuts the line in half. On a job site, one station near the restroom and another near the mixing area or the finishing crew covers most residential jobs; a larger commercial site places them by each restroom cluster.

Send the number of vendors, the headcount and the layout, and the quote comes back with the count and the placement.

A hand wash station needs firm, level ground, a spot where the used water won't be knocked over and enough room for someone to stand at the sink. Keep it out of the walkway and the curb ramp, and close enough to the restrooms or the food that nobody skips it.

Water freezes. On a Philadelphia job site from December through February, a station left outside overnight can freeze solid. We'll talk through the dates with you; for a winter job the answer can be an in-unit sink in a restroom kept out of the wind, a station placed inside the building's shell or a schedule that works around the coldest stretch.

On every service visit, the gray water is pumped out, the fresh water tank is refilled, the basin is cleaned and soap and paper towels are restocked. Job site stations are serviced on the same weekly visit as the restrooms; event stations are refilled around the event, and a long festival day can use an extra refill before the evening rush.

Pair the stations with porta potty rental, an ADA-accessible unit and a dumpster for the cleanup, all on one quote and one invoice.

A hand wash station looks simple from the front: a basin, a soap dispenser and a paper towel holder. Inside the body are two tanks. The upper one holds fresh water, and a foot pump draws it through the faucet so nobody has to touch a handle with dirty hands. The lower one catches the gray water from the basin, so the used water stays in the station instead of soaking the lawn or running across the sidewalk.

A two-sided station doubles the basins and shares the tanks, so it holds more water and serves twice the people for the same footprint. A paper towel holder and a trash bag or bin go with every station, because wet paper towels on the ground are the first thing a health inspector or a neighbor notices.

Water temperature matters for food vendors. The Health Department's guidance for vendors calls for warm water, which is why the station a caterer or a food booth uses is planned with them, and why we ask whether food is being handled when you request the quote.

At a Philadelphia special event with food, the Health Department inspects each food vendor before the event starts, and hand washing is one of the first things checked. A vendor without it doesn't open. Event organizers who put hand wash stations on their own quote, placed behind the vendor row before the inspector arrives, take one problem off the morning of the event.

The same goes for a festival's restroom area. A row of porta potties with a station at each end is what a site plan reviewer expects to see, and it's what keeps a crowd from carrying what's on its hands back to the food court. Tell us how many vendors are handling food and where the restrooms stand, and the stations go where they'll be checked and used.