Recommendations on the organization of laundry

When organizing a laundry first of all you need to pay attention to the room where the entire process of processing linen will take place. Ideally, there shall be 5 separate rooms (workshops) that correspond to the stages of laundry processing:

But experience has proven when organizing a laundry, the problem of the limited area of the room increasingly arises. In this case, when selecting and arranging equipment, it is necessary to calculate the entire production process in such a way that the streams of dirty linen do not intersect with clean ones. There are certain requirements for the decoration and layout of the laundry facilities. The main criterion for such a finish for Russia is the requirements of the sanitary epidemiological service. There are currently no such current regulatory documents governing the mechanism of laundries, but compliance with certain requirements is still necessary. According to these requirements, it is necessary to have two entrances (this requirement is also made by the fire inspection); floors and walls (to a height of 2 m) shall be tiled; lighting fixtures, switchboards, sockets, etc. shall be waterproof and splash-proof.

When choosing equipment, it is important to correctly calculate the amount of reprocessable linen so as not to overpay for equipment that will not work at full capacity. If you are on a budget, then you should not chase after the "dominant name" laundry equipment. It usually costs more. In addition, more expensive models will be more expensive to repair, absolutely all equipment breaks down. 

The next step is to select the equipment itself that will work directly. Here, from all the variety of washing, washer extractors, drying and ironing machines, it is necessary to assemble such a set of equipment that will work with the maximum possible efficiency.

It shall be said that all equipment can be in two versions - with steam or electric heating. It is more rational to use machines with steam heating if it is possible to supply steam from stationary boiler houses, then the operating costs will be lower than that of machines with electric heating.

In addition to the heating method, washing machines are divided into sprung washer extractors (also called high-speed ones) and unsprung washing machines with or without intermediate extraction. Sprung washer extractors have a number of advantages: full extraction (residual moisture 50%), fully automated, save time for processing laundry (by excluding the centrifuge from the technological chain), save working space. The main disadvantage of washer extractors is their prices, since the cost of such machines is a sequence higher than that of unsprung washing machines. Unsprung washing machines are very suitable for "budgetary" organizations which often have moderate means. These machines are of various modifications depending on various parameters - according to the control method they can be with manual or automatic control; by residual moisture - with intermediate or without extraction; facing and outer drum are available in painted or stainless steel. The main disadvantage of such a set is that it will require more manual labor of staff for maintenance and a large production area for installing centrifuges.

The next stage in processing the laundry is drying it. Drying machines can also be of various modifications - with manual or automatic control; with or without reverse. But first of all when choosing a drying machine, one shall focus on its performance. For example, for a washing machine with a load of 30 kg a drying machine with a capacity of 15 kg is suitable (if its capacity is 30 kg per hour), because one working cycle of a washing machine (or washer extractor) averages 60 minutes (1 hour). It is important to know that all laundry equipment is designed to load the volume of dry laundry in kg +% of moisture after processing in a washing machine and vice versa in the case of a drying machine, because the laundry comes out dry.

Depending on the type and amount of the processed laundry, the ironing equipment is divided into dryer ironers, mangles, presses and ironing tables. Mangles therefore differ in the type of execution and technical indicators among which the most important are the width of the ironing zone and productivity. Flatwork dryer ironers allow not only ironing straight linen (sheets, tablecloths, etc.), but also drying at the same time bypassing the drying machine. Ironing mangles are only intended for ironing straight linen after preliminary drying in a drying machine. Ironing presses are designed for ironing texture linen (dressing gowns, shirts, trousers, etc.). They differ in the area of ironing, productivity and the presence of various additional functions (temperature control, attachment for ironing leather, built-in compressor, vacuum fan, etc.). Ironing tables are designed for ironing a small amount of laundry, including laundry that cannot be ironed on any of the above equipment. As a rule they differ in the size of the ironing surface, the presence of a lever arm for ironing sleeves, the presence of vacuum suction (for fixing clothes on the working surface) and blowing (for ironing delicate clothes), as well as additional equipment included in the delivery set (steam generator, iron, steam gun, brushes, etc.).

Also, when planning a laundry, it is necessary to allocate space for racks for storing washed and ironed linen. For the convenience of moving linen from one process to another, you can purchase special carts.

Thus before choosing equipment, you need to decide on the following parameters: 

Let's take an example of a hotel with 6500 kg of linen per month, of which 65% (4550 kg) are straight, 20% (1400 kg) terry (towels, bathrobes, etc.) and 15% (1050) texture linen. Laundry working hours is 5 days a week, 1 shift (shift is 8 hours).
As stated above, the average wash cycle is 60 minutes (1 hour) + 5 minutes for loading/unloading the drum and 5 minutes for changing the washing cycle, it turns out that 6-7 loads occur per shift.

Thus, having carried out simple calculations, we get 6500/22 days /6 hours = approximately 49 kg/ load (32 kg of straight linen, 9 kg of terry and 8 kg of texture linen).

For straight linen and terry, it is best to install 2 washing machines with a load of 20 kg instead of 1 for 40 kg, so when one of the machines stops for scheduled maintenance, the laundry work will not stop. To wash texture linen, you need 1 machine with a load of 10 kg.

It is better to choose a drying machine for a laundry with a reverse, because at the same time the linen does not curl and, as a result, is easier and better to iron. On average, the operating cycle of the drying machine is 30 minutes (2 loads are made per hour), while it shall be remembered that terry products after extracting have 100% residual moisture, therefore, the drying time for these products doubles. Thus, we need 2 machines with a load of 15 kg for a given volume.

The ironing equipment will be selected taking into account the fact that mainly straight linen and 15% of texture linen will be processed (terry products cannot be ironed). Therefore, it is better to purchase 1 dryer ironer and 1 ironing table with an iron and a steam generator for ironing (this will be enough for processing 9 kg of shaped linen per hour).

As auxiliary equipment, you will need 3 racks for storing linen and 2 - 3 carts to move linen from one process to another.

Thus, in the end we got the following set of equipment:

This set requires an area of 60 m2

In conclusion, I would like to note that this calculation was made for linen with a medium degree of staining. The duration of the wash cycle is effected by many factors, among which the following can be highlighted:

a) the degree of staining of the linen (at 4 degrees of staining, for better washing the washing cycle (depending on the program can be from 40 to 120 minutes) increases, as a result the number of loads per shift can be reduced to 3 - 4); 

b) the temperature of hot water in the network (shall be 60-70°C, if lower, this will lead to an increase in the heating time of water in the drum which will entail an increase in the wash cycle and a decrease in the number of loads per shift); 

c) water pressure in the main line (the time for water intake into the drum increases and, accordingly, the wash cycle at low pressure).