Institutional vs. Domestic Laundry Products
Institutional/professional laundry products differ from domestic on several levels depending upon various factors.
First commercial product offerings come in a bewildering and vast array of chemicals designed to suit particular soils/problems issues.
While there are "one shot" products that resemble Tide (which is sold for professional use), you also have separate builders, bleaches, enzyme, pre-soak, anti-bacterial, anti-grease, breaks, alkaline builders, non-alkaline builders, pH adjusters such as sours, various bleaches (chlorine, oxalic acid, oxygen, etc...), and so forth. These are used according to what is being laundered. That is goods from say a meat processing plant require different formulations than men's dress shirts.
Commercial laundry products can and tend to be highly concentrated and often very powerful. The first is because they are meant for dilution in machines that *start* at 50lbs or even 100lbs and only to up. The next is because cycle times are short and thus products need to be able to hit and run so to speak.
Unlike domestic laundry time in commercial settings is money. The longer a machine is tied up doing one wash means it cannot do another. So you either need more machines to handle peak loads or make the one's you've got work faster. You notice cycle times on even Laundromat machines isn't very long say compared to domestic unit.
You aren't going to get long cycles with starting from cold water and gradually heating to warm or hot and then held for 30 minutes or longer. You'll get very hot to boiling washes held for ten or so minutes to satisfy certain standards for sanitation/disinfection were required, but that is far is it goes. Those machines and that load need to be kept moving.
Commercial laundry also goes through far more changes of water than domestic machines. They also use hotter water, driers and ironers than you could ever get today in domestic use normally. This adds up when done well to a very good and fresh smelling result, but often at the cost of additional wear and tear.
As for the freshness of hotel linens that could be (and often is) the result of various softeners or other scented products.
Ecolab:
They aren't only player in the USA commercial/institutional market, but by far the largest it seems. Besides Ecolab you have Johnson-Diversey, and P&G along with a host of others. P&G markets Tide, Downy and so forth in the USA for "institutional" use while across the pond they do the same with Ariel, Lenor and so forth. Henkel as a commercial/professional arm as well. Miele teamed up with Kreussler a well known maker of commercial products.
Ecolab like the others succeed by locking in customers to their various proprietary dispensing systems. After you've spent no small amount of money to have those things installed and stocked up on the chemicals that go with it you are sort of stuck aren't you? Ecolab sends their people to set things up and program the equipment. Often even the owners of laundries aren't told the settings/dilution rates for the products they have paid. If product isn't coming out the way it should the Ecolab rep comes back and he or she will work (hopefully) with the plant to get things sorted.
All that Ecolab products you see on fleaPay and elsewhere are surplus to requirement goods that people need to move on. They've paid for the stuff and Ecolab isn't taking it back so it has to find homes elsewhere. Trouble is virtually none of it comes with directions. That is what the Ecolab reps are for. If you happen to use Ecolab in your business then you are set. Otherwise you are out of luck. Ecolab's reps and corporate will *NOT* provide any sort of assistance unless you are a customer. They also will have nothing to do with domestic users.
