I’m going to remodel my self-service laundry. In the process, I’ll be replacing all of the equipment, and adding some 80- and 125-pound washers. My question is whether to go with a card system or to stay with strictly quarters.
With the increase in the cost of doing business, it’s inevitable that most stores in the near future will have to go with dollar coins, tokens or card systems. After all, try to envision your customers putting in $15 or $16 worth of quarters into one of your machines. In addition, the coin boxes simply don’t have the capacity to handle such a great amount of quarters, especially in a high-volume store like yours. I believe that card systems in today’s high-volume stores are the only way to go.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about keeping my laundry open 24 hours to bring in some extra business. No other laundromats in my marketplace are open 24 hours. What do you think?
In most cases, I think this is a bad idea. In my experience, I’ve found that most 24-hour laundries lose money after 11:00 p.m. Also, I’ve discovered that most owners don’t take full accounting of their expenses after 11:00 p.m. – failing to consider costs such as labor, lighting, air conditioning, heating and so on.
Round-the-clock laundry businesses came into existence 30 to 40 years ago. This was back when the U.S. was loaded with manufacturing plants, and factories everywhere were running second and third work shifts. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case in most areas. Of course, if your store is located in one of these rare markets that still has businesses employing three shifts of workers, it might make sense to stay open 24 hours. Otherwise, I would strongly advise against it.
Could you please offer some suggestions on how to wash and dry stuffed animals?
First of all, I would suggest using a topload washer and be sure it is set on a gentle cycle. Next, I would recommend using either a dishwashing detergent or a very mild laundry detergent in that wash cycle. Above all, I would definitely not use chlorine bleach.
When drying the items, be sure you have a full load in the dryer. In other words, make certain the dryer is at least one-half to three-quarters full – otherwise, the excessive turning and tumbling within the dryer drum could possibly split some of the seams on the stuffed toys, especially when those seams are wet.
What products would you suggest for laundering massage towels
and sheets? This commercial client uses baby oil and grape seed oils.
Also, I have been using bleach on these items, but the towels are losing
their “whiteness.” I’ve been adding non-chlorine bleach, because I
remember reading an article that suggested using it to keep white items
whiter.
First of all, there is a liquid product called
Laundry Wetspo, which you can purchase from your local chemical
distributor. It’s designed primarily to disburse oils and greases. That
product should work well at getting the massage towels and sheets clean
for this particular client.
Also, let me point out a common
misnomer with regard to cleaning white, cotton items. On such items, you
should use chlorine bleach, rather than non-chlorine bleach.
Non-chlorine bleach should be used only for synthetic, colored garments;
otherwise, chlorine bleach does a much better job of retaining that
bright white color.
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