Hidden Troublemakers in your Commercial Laundry
Hidden Troublemakers in your Commercial Laundry
Water is one of the main components in your commercial laundry and making sure that it can quickly enter your washer-extractor and then quickly exit when required can have significant impacts to your bottom line.
The inlet hose and water connection shown above have greatly reduced capacity for water flow. This reduction causes increased fill times which directly impact the productivity of your laundry. If it takes an additional minute to fill your machines, that is 5 minutes per wash cycle (assuming 5 fills per wash program). Over the course of 1 day, this adds 40 minutes of time, meaning you’ve lost the ability to run one more load per shift for each machine affected, multiplying the cost of this inefficiency. Worse, these types of clogs do not improve with age and eventually no water will be able to pass through. The good news is that this is a very easy fix and something that should be inspected regularly, especially in areas with known water problems.
The drain system of the machine can cause the same issues, as a slow draining machine will take longer to complete a wash program and lead to the same issues as discussed with the inlet hoses and fill valves. The drain system should be regularly inspected for slowly leaking drains, clogs in the machine’s drain valve, and slow-downs in your floor drain, drain trough, or however you are handling the wastewater.
Overall, a routine preventative maintenance plan should be implemented that addresses these and other typical problems before they begin to seriously impact the productivity of your laundry. If in doubt, consult your installation and operation manual, your local distributor, or the machine manufacturer for recommended maintenance and service intervals.
A special thank you to Kevin Carlson of Cleanwash Laundry Systems for the crusty inlet hose and water inlet connections. I always enjoy receiving photos of problems in laundry rooms!
