Ways To Lower Your Commercial Laundry Costs

When you’re running a business, one of the most important aspects to success is knowing how to manage your finances effectively. Sometimes things don’t appear to be big cost items in the beginning, but they can quickly add up over time. The important part is thinking past the just initial purchase price and taking into account running costs including water and energy, and detergent usage costs.

If you operate an on-premises laundry and want to manage your costs better, this guide is for you.

1. Switch or review your chemical dosing
In a busy laundry you can easily lose track of your chemicals and detergent costs. We recommend using an automatic dosing system. An automatic dosing system will weigh the laundry load and dispense the exact amount of detergent needed for that load. This will help to cut down product wastage and detergent costs.

You can learn more about what Auto-Dosing is here.

2. Maintain Your Dryers
Regular machine maintenance can help increase the life span of your machine and improve efficiency. Some key tips include:
• Clean your lint trap regularly: It will save you energy and your garments will dry more quickly.
• Don’t overload the drum: You’ll get more creasing and poor results leading to longer drying cycles.
• Check vents: Make sure that the vent hose is not tangled or blocked, this will cause longer cycles.

3. Maintain Your Washers
Run a regular maintenance wash to clear away any dirt, bacteria, limescale, and grease from the machines keeping it clean and odour-free. These washes will help to protect your machine and ensure they run at optimum efficiency. Further maintenance tips include:
• Regularly clean the soap drawers.
• Descale your washer, The Carbon Trust found every 1mm of limescale build-up on heating elements adds 7% to a machine’s energy consumption.

4. Wash On Lower Temperatures
Wash on lower temperatures where possible, although ensure the correct temperatures are used when required for infection control purposes. You can make use of machines with programmable controls to create programmes with lower water temperatures to save money on heating the water, and with lower water levels which conserves water and means shorter cycle times to conserve energy.

5. Use Fast Spin Cycles
A fast spin cycle will drain more excess water from washing loads and therefore take less time to dry. Look for a washer that reaches high extract speeds between 300-450 G-force. By removing more water, drying time is shortened by up to or more than 50%.

6. Use Moisture Sensor
Use the moisture sensor option on your tumble dryer if available to prevent over drying, this can help in 3 ways:
• Reduce the energy used during drying
• Enables you to choose how dry you would like the laundry to be, this is helpful for items that require ironing with moisture left in.
• Prevents excessive heat damage to the laundry which will maintain the quality and extend the life of your garments.

7. Heat Pump Technology
Consider swapping to heat pump tumble dryer which can reduce energy consumption by 65%. The operate at lower temperatures and use a closed-loop heat exchange to recirculate air resulting in significant energy savings.

Searching for a reliable distributor and fitter of commercial laundry equipment?

Look no further than GA Commercial for all of your laundry solution needs.