If you use a thermometer in your daily activities, you must have wondered at one time or the other how should a thermometer be dried after washing rinsing and sanitizing it?
Thermometers are essential equipment, especially in the health industry, although that isn’t the only important place.
You can also use them at home. But if you are to use them well, you need to know how to dry them after washing.
How to Dry a Thermometer?
This is usually the final stage in the cleaning and disinfection of thermometers. There are several ways you can go about drying a thermometer, some conventional and some way too creative.
- Rice Drying
We bet you’ve heard of this method of drying, no? have you ever accidentally dropped your phone in water? Well, rice is one of the ways you can dry it. The same applies to a thermometer.
Rice drying involves you immersing the thermometer into a bucket of rice and letting it stay there for a couple of hours or days. Ensure you cove the container the rice is in for maximum water removal.
The only problem is that it might take too long to dry the thermometer. That might inconvenience you in case you want to use the thermometer as soon as it is dry.
- Air Drying
Air drying is the most common way to dry most thermometers. It can work exceptionally well with an oral glass thermometer; the better if the sun is outshining.
While air drying, you can shake it to have it dry faster.
Putting it somewhere the sun is shining is also another effective way to have your thermometer dry. It is faster than the rice technique, especially when you do with the scorching midday sun or windy weather.
- Heating in an Oven
While the sun might not be in all places to make air-drying faster, an oven might be an excellent option to dry your thermometer. Placing the thermometer in the oven will dry all the water in it and sterilize it.
A hairdryer can also come in handy here. You can blast the water right out of the thermometer with a hairdryer just like you would blow the water out of your hair.
Warm hair from a hairdryer could be handy if you own a grill thermometer that tends to soak up a lot of water whenever you clean it.
It would also be ideal for an oral glass thermometer.
- Using Incandescent Light
Do you have a source of incandescent light in your home? It could also be an option if you are looking to dry your thermometer. You, however, need to be careful to avoid the light damaging the thermometer.
The methods above will work for most thermometers unless they have elaborate setups. Remember that a digital thermometer is the more delicate will need you to dry it with care.
That means you will have to be a little creative in drying it to prevent any damage.
One thing though, before you get to the process of drying a thermometer, you have to wash, rinse and sanitize it first. How do you go about that?
Washing and Sanitizing Thermometer
Before getting to dry a thermometer, you first need to know how to clean and sanitize it. You can’t learn how to run without walking.
While most testing equipment needs special washing, a thermometer needs more than just that.
A thermometer’s work is such that you need it to be as sterile as possible. By sterile, we mean it should be free of any microbes, let alone dirt.
A clean thermometer could be a major agent of transferring pathogens from one test to the other.
So how do you go about washing a thermometer?
There are various ways you can do that. Don’t worry; it doesn’t involve any special chemicals that would be complicated to find.
There are different thermometers, but we will be focusing on how to clean the more popular ones.
The most popular thermometers are oral glass and digital thermometers.
How to Wash and Sanitize a Glass Oral Thermometer?
There are two ways you can do that.
- Rubbing Alcohol
- Using soap and water
Rubbing Alcohol
What do you need?
- 70% alcohol
- Cotton wool
- A Paper towel
- Dab the cotton wool into the alcohol
- Gently rub the thermometer with the cotton wool ensuring you cover all its parts.
- Now rinse the thermometer with water. It can either be running water or even water in a small basin.
As simple as that. That’s how you wash and sanitize a thermometer using alcohol.
Washing and Sanitizing Using Soap and Water
People often underestimate the power of soap in cleaning dirt off glass surfaces. One could forgive them for thinking that since not all soaps are that efficient at cleaning off the dirt.
Still, with suitable soap, you can wash and sanitize a thermometer quite easily.
What do you need to do that?
- Water and liquid soap
- A bowl to hold the water
- Paper towels (Clean ones)
- Pour the liquid water into a bowl of water and ensure it is soapy
- Dip the thermometer into the water and wash it well like you would clean a glass cup. It would help if you were careful not to break the thermometer, though.
- Use clean water to rinse off the soap. With that, you will have washed a thermometer with soap and water. Liquid soap is handier than solid soap, but detergent could help if you can’t access liquid soap.
How to Wash and Sanitize a Digital Thermometer?
A digital thermometer varies in so many ways from the oral glass thermometer, which is why you should never clean it the same way you would the latter.
For one, dipping it in water would damage it since it sort of works like an electronic device- well, because it is.
You can use two things to wash and sanitize a digital thermometer- alcohol, and bleach.
Washing and Sanitizing with Alcohol
As with the oral glass thermometer, you will have to use alcohol at least 60 percent. Any lesser percentage and will reduce its capacity to sterilize the thermometer.
What Do you Need?
- 70 Percent alcohol
- A paper towel
- Clean Water
- Cotton pads
- Microfiber towel
- Firstly, wipe the thermometer’s display using the microfiber hotel, put the cotton pad into the 70 percent alcohol, and then wipe the thermometer’s length giving special attention to the tip. It would help if you avoided the digital display to ensure you dint damage it.
- Now remove the alcohol with a cotton pad that you have dipped in the water this time. With that, you will have washed and sanitized the thermometer.
Using Bleach Wipe
- What You will need
- Microfiber towel
- Bleach Wipe
- Paper Towel
- Water
- Cotton Pad
- Wipe the display with the microfiber towel. The display doesn’t need any water or alcohol to sanitize.
- Use the bleach wipe and carefully wipe the entirety of the thermometer. Don’t wipe the display, though. After that use, the cotton pad dipped in clean water to wipe off the alcohol.
Now that you know how to wash, rinse and sanitize a thermometer, you can use any of the methods we have outlined to dry it.
Final Thoughts
Still, asking yourself the question, how should a thermometer be dried after washing, rinsing, and sanitizing it? We bet not. If you follow some of the techniques we have highlighted, you should have them ready for use soon after cleaning.
All the best.
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