Extracting Savings In Laundry Operations

Mixed reaction to guestroom of the future as companies announce new products, technologies.

By Staff -- HOTELS Magazine, 10/1/2006

An executive housekeeper at the Vintners Inn, Santa Rosa, California, stands next to the labor-savings washer-extractor at the hotel’s new on-site laundry facility.

California inn, Sheraton in Seattle find ways to create new efficiencies in their laundry and housekeeping departments.

By Jeff Weinstein, Editor in Chief

With labor, insurance, energy and just about every other cost of doing business on a steep incline, finding ways to control costs has never been more important. At the same time, controlling costs without compromising service can be a tricky proposition. The Vintners Inn, Santa Rosa, California, a 44-room property in the heart of Sonoma county’s wine country, was about to lose the services of its linen supply company and used the opportunity to create an on-premises service that would create an estimated savings of 50% while, at the same time, improve the quality and consistency of its high threadcount linen used in guestrooms.

With a long-term plan of growing to an 80-room hotel, General Manager Percy Brandon decided the time was now to expand the wastewater system to accommodate an on-site laundry program. “Since we own 92 acres (37 ha) of vineyard, we had the space to build the plant,” Brandon says, adding that estimated savings bringing linen service in-house would help pay for the addition of a treatment plant.

To meet its laundry needs, Vintners paired two 60-lb. (27-kg) UniMac washer-extractors with two 75-lb. (34-kg) drying tumblers. These four units combine to keep up with their linen demands and help set up for the big finish. “Our most impressive equipment is our flatwork finisher, which enables us to provide the quality our guests expect,” Brandon says.

The Inn also has seen additional benefits by moving its laundry on-site. “Our savings versus the linen service are greater than originally anticipated due to our lower cost of wastewater and the lower consumption of natural gas for the ironer,” Brandon says.

Utility savings via the higher extraction speeds on the washer-extractors has impacted the terry goods laundering as well. “When we installed the superhigh speed extraction, our drying times for the terry products were reduced by about 10 minutes per load,” Brandon says. “It reduced our laundry labor costs and the shorter drying time reduced our natural gas costs.”

The Sheraton Seattle also recently finished a US$2 million remodel of their laundry facilities, which includes the addition of a Continuous Batch Washer tunnel system and Chicago Ironers. These add-ons make the Sheraton Seattle’s laundry facility faster and more efficient for its employees, as well as becoming more energy efficient. Up to 110 lbs. (50 kg) of terry towels and linens can be loaded into the washer at a time via a continuous feed conveyor. The countercurrent flow saves 60% to 70% of the volume of water required by previous equipment.

On the following pages HOTELS has assembled many new laundry and housekeeping products available today in the marketplace that can help increase efficiencies and cut costs.