Do You Need A Commercial Laundry Service?
Do you run medium to large multisite business, or a medium to large hotel?
Well if you do and you are providing some form of uniform to your staff, be it front of house or delivery drivers, then the chances are that you will have a lot of laundry to get through each day. In a hotel the requirement is further amplified by the need to launder bedding, tablecloths and napkins.
The majority of companies will choose to start out using a commercial laundry service, as they are ideal if you are starting out small, but are planning on opening a lot of sales outlets such as a new coffee shop or fast food franchise. A good laundry service will be able to grow with you as you expand.
They offer many benefits, not the least of which is that they all offer overnight turnaround on cleaning and pressing uniforms.
However there may well come a point when you decide that your business is spending far too much on laundry, and you may consider bringing the service in house. Indeed many hotels opt for a small in house laundry as this can offer them more flexibility and the option to offer guests clothes laundering services.
But investing in commercial laundry equipment is a big step to take, as whilst you may think you could do it cheaper by bringing it in house, the reality is that a commercial laundry is running 24/7 and bases what it charges around that.
Whereas you are unlikely to run your machines for that time period and thus the cost of staff running them pro-rata will be higher.
To set one up as minimum you will need a commercial washing machine, an industrial tumble drier, and a finishing machine/commercial iron press. However you also need to consider that you may need to buy two of each to ensure that if one machine breaks down your operation is not disrupted. You will also then have to think about setting up a maintenance agreement to give you suitable cover, as well as setting aside a large area to run the laundry, and recruiting and managing staff to run it.
So overall whilst you may consider setting things up on your own, you should really only consider doing this when you really do have a substantial amount of laundry to process, and can realise a genuine cost saving by buying and running your own commercial laundry equipment.