Dental autoclaves, plays a crucial role in keeping your patients healthy. For instance, sterilization is a necessary part of the maintenance of your dental handpiece. This process also puts your handpiece under the most stress with wear and tear. Maximum temperatures in your autoclave shouldn’t reach more than 140 degrees Fahrenheit. This can help to preserve your handpiece just a bit longer in between the need for service.

Packaging cleaned instruments prior to placing them in the sterilizer is a standard of care that protects instruments and maintains their sterility until they are ready for use on a patient. Unprotected instruments may be re-contaminated with dust and spatter or by coming into contact with any number of non-sterile surfaces during transport, storage, tray set-up, and operatory set-up.

Since autoclaves are involved in the sterilization of dental instruments, you simply cannot afford to invest in anything but the best. However, you should know that there are several varieties and price points of autoclaves available to suit your specific needs. If you feel as if you have overspent on autoclaves in the past or purchased the wrong version, then you need to educate yourself to avoid making the same mistake twice.

You cannot put your career on the line by failing to obtain the right kind of dental autoclave. The first thing you need to consider is that manual vs. automatic. Manual autoclaves are generally less expensive to buy and repair, but they take much longer to use. Automatic autoclaves cost a bit more, but they can save you tons of time and detect any malfunctions.

Dry heat sterilizers have been used effectively in dental office for many years. Just as with any other sterilization method, dry heat sterilization is highly dependent upon the operator following the manufacturer's instructions for cycle time, temperature, instrument packaging, and loading technique. Because dry air is not as efficient a heat conductor as moist heat at the same temperature, a much higher temperature is required for a dry heat unit to accomplish sterilization.

Autoclaves are certainly essential to your job as a dentist, but as you know, there are thousands of other things you’ll need to pay for along the way to properly stock your office. The average new dental practice needs about $500,000 in cash for structural upfit, equipment, and supplies. If this sounds impossibly daunting to you, you are not alone. Find a trusted retailer online that offers a wide range of dental tools as they typically have higher quality equipment with lower prices.