How Technology Has Changed Industrial or Commercial Laundries.

[launderess]

Going back to beginning laundry has always been an labor intensive job. Commercial or industrial "steam laundries" had no end of battles with unions or other labor actions which in a way was a good thing. It ended some of the worse abuses by employers, but still the job is what it is.

Gradually thanks to technological advances laundries can crank out far more pounds of finished goods using less employees and lower costs.

This is how things were done in 1940's



Fast forward to 2014:



One hospital still keeps to old ways:



Then there is the modern way:

 

[tolivac]

In those modern laundrys with automated equipment-instead of launderers and laundresses you would need IT guys and techs to take care of the equipment rather than the laundry.Not like the older video where the laundry people did the work!Interesting videos!

 

[launderess]

So much of the process has been automated at larger commercial or industrial laundries. But some things still need to be done by hand, such as getting things onto ironers..... You can feed things onto various clamps or whatever, but that still takes human hands.





Thing is none of this equipment comes cheap, so unless a place has the volume (or can go out and get it), to make ROI, it becomes pointless.

This is reason why you're seeing in more and more markets one or maybe a few huge laundries dominate various commercial or industrial. This or maybe a place like Disney World/Land, a hospital or healthcare network will have one large laundry for entire system.

 

[tolivac]

HMMMMMM-wonder how these laundry places are doing under Covid-Thought Disney World was shut down and closed. Same with the motels/hotels.BUT---bet the laundry places are BUSY with laundry from the hospitals and other care provide places.

 

[circlew]

Rex, Disney World Florida is currently open (with limitations) according to their website. However, Disneyland California remains closed due to that state's government.

I don't know of any hotels or motels around here that have closed. Some in big cities may have due to a total lack of customers, especially if dependent on business travelers. I stayed in a Best Western in July after a medical procedure, and it was moderately busy.

 

[frigilux]

Question: Do people in metropolitan areas still send laundry out to be done? I have lived in very small towns all my life and no such service was available. I do recall a handful of wives sending their husbands’ dress shirts to the cleaners when I was a kid (1960s). The vast majority—my mom included—washed, starched and ironed dress shirts themselves.

 

[launderess]

"Do people in metropolitan areas still send laundry out to be done?"

Ohh yes!

Can't speak for elsewhere but in our neck of woods options range from corner Asian laundries/dry cleaners to large commercial laundries. Then you have app based services.

https://bynext.co

And many more: https://www.google.com/search?clien...DvwQ6nUoADApegQIPxAB&biw=984&bih=711&dpr=1.25

This place recently closed: https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/one-of-new-york-city-last-chinese-hand-laundries-closes/

Same labor problems that always have been at laundries still persist: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/nyregion/nyc-laundry-workers-unionizing.html

Across the pond in UK: https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/oxwash-bags-1-7m-for-a-cleaner-spin-on-laundry/

Laundromats however are going way of Dodo, at least around here: https://www.crainsnewyork.com/artic...50319908/once-a-fixture-laundromats-disappear

Overall aside from wash and fold services the other staple of laundry households still send out is shirts.

 

[DADoES]

 
There are two laundry/dry cleaner businesses here.  One has been operating since earlier than 1964, the other is years newer.

 

[launderess]

On a matter near and dear to us on this forum, prior to WWII many homes still sent out their laundry, not just those in urban areas. Yes, there were washing machines, ironers, and everything else, but many housewives/households clung to old ways. That is soon as there was any extra money to be found in budget laundry was first household chore most got shot of....

Little by little appliance manufacturers began getting at housewives. All those advertisements about Madam being first line of defense in her home against germs and disease. To protect all she held near and dear a truly caring wife and mother would do her washing at home instead of sending it out. And thanks to new appliances she had no reason for not doing so, well until WWII came along. That event saw an unprecedented push of women into workforce, so some household chores fell by the wayside, including laundry.

No worries however because once war was over the post war era saw a huge push towards domesticity with women married, back in the home, keeping house and of course doing their own laundry. Soon as war time restrictions were lifted manufactures flooded the market with all sorts of laundry appliances especially fully automatic washing machines and clothes dryers.

Looking back the post war era until about maybe 1970's was the heyday for laundry appliances. We know what followed... The post war boom began to wane as pent up demand for appliances decreased and the boom in new housing also did same. What would be left is pretty much what drives market today; replacements and or new home construction.

What followed was a shaking out of the domestic laundry appliance market. What wasn't shut down ended up being bought by one company or another. This explains how now only a handful of white goods manufacturers (such as Whirlpool or Electrolux) own scores of former great appliance brand names.

 

[whirlykenmore78]

EugeneLaundry service in a Metropolis)

Here in the Twin Cities most all Dry Cleaning shops and attended Laundromats offer (Wash, dry, fold) Drop Off Laundry service. Laundry done is commonly billed by the pound (KG) or item washed. Some do the laundry in house (Laundromats and DC stores connected to a DC plant) while others send it out to a Central Processing Plant as you are dropping off laundry or DC at a satellite store. There are many of these services in the Minneapolis/ST. Paul area but I do not know the percentage of the population that utilises them.
WK78

 

[adam-aussie-vac]

Laundress

“This explains how now only a handful of what good manufacturers such as Whirlpool or Electroluxe owns scores of former great appliance brand names” it’s amazing how over here Simpson Hoover Electrolux Westinghouse,are Actually a single company although there are different brand names are actually different now thankfully

 

[henene4]

New ways

Many mass laundry services for hotels and such are changing to tunnel washers instead of large FL style machines.

With recent advances in technology and chemicals you can now do many kinds of laundry in such systems that were impossible before.

Due to their very much integrated and optimised design they became hugely efficient.

Even highly soiled laundry can be done with less than 1gal of water per pound from what manufacturers say.

And tunnel washers just only really work well on huge batches.
And moving 100lbs of dry soiled laundry up a story every 90sec or so is just better done automatically.

Even more so moving that same amount wet laundry to a dryer in the same time step.

But these dryers are incredible.

These beasts have heating powers in the dozens or even hundreds of kw, drums large enough to stand in, auto load and unload, dryness detection by means of load temperature measurement.

Througput is in the hundreds of pounds per hour.

One large position of laundry in hospitals at least over here however is still done in house.

Most "dangerous" kinds - either laundry soiled with infectious things or laundry that has to be sterilised instead of just desinfected - are done in house.

These are usually run in in house laundry's with barrier type machines.

They are processed pretty similar to what would happen in external laundrys (wash, dry, finish).
However stuff to be sterilised is then sealed in one way bags and send through steam sterilisation.
(Usually stuff like linen for operating rooms where not disposable.)

 

[launderess]

Gold standard for hospital or healthcare linen is still a separate washer/extractor then dryers and or ironers. However that system is energy, water and labor intensive so modern tunnel (batch) washers are making huge inroads.



That being said there are issues with doing healthcare linens in batch washers. First and foremost not everything can go through those machines. Small items such as things from nursery or pediatrics cause issues, so are usually done in a traditional washer/extractor.

Some places mix it up with both, tunnel washer and also stand alone washer/extractors and dryers also for doing "small" loads such as nursing home or other resident's laundry.



Since idea with most batch washers is that water moves in one direction with linen in another loads must follow a certain logical sequence. You cannot do say a load of really fouled linen (such as poopy diapers) just before less soiled laundry due to contamination risks.

Tunnel washers vary in ability to meet certain protocols for "disinfection" of laundry. Indeed it has been found some "germs" can survive within a tunnel washer to infect everything that comes through machine.

Unlike a stand alone washer/extractor which when heats water the entire machine warms up, with batch washers usually only the water bath in particular compartment reaches certain temps. Subsequent compartments (such as say a lower temperature rinse after hot or very wash), aren't bothered.

 

[superocd]

I've always wondered what the protocol was before barrie

...washers came onto the scene. Did they wipe the front, door and seal with a disinfecting solution after loading the soiled laundry and before closing the door to start the cycle? It's something I even think about when I wash laundry in my own washer -- that's why when I wash work uniforms (I'm an HVAC tech and have been in some icky houses and even some icky commercial sites, wife is an RN and is around nothing but germs) I wipe the front of my machine with some sanitizer after loading the clothes. Because if you think about it, when you put those clean clothes out, they may touch the front of the washer around the door opening, which the dirty clothes have touched while loading. Maybe I'm overthinking it (was caught by my wife one time wiping our machine with some sanitizer, thought I finally lost it), maybe I'm too OCD...that's why my name is SuperOCD.