Assisted Living's Laundry Dilemma: In-Unit or Facility-Wide?

The factors in deciding between the two options

An owner planning a new assisted living home probably does not consider laundry equipment to be his highest priority. While choosing to use top-loading, residential-style washers or front loading, commercial washers might not be as exciting as, say, choosing flooring and wallpaper, laundry equipment vendors advise owners to spend time selecting their laundry equipment and its setting because this can affect plans in design, financing and marketing of the facility.

Two such vendors agreed to offer pointers for readers of Nursing Homes/ Long Term Care Management: Kim Shady, North America Sales Manager for laundry equipment manufacturer UniMac, and Randy Zimring, president of Allied Commercial Laundry Equipment, St. Louis.

"Once you design for residential-style washers, you can almost never replace them with commercial washers," Shady says. "The equipment size and the utility needs--whether it be the drain or the electricity--jump significantly when you choose commercial equipment." Shady says he hears about once a week from owners who want to replace their residential washers with commercial units and then discover the limitations.

The problem doesn't lie with the cost of the actual equipment--Shady says that equipping a facility with commercial or residential washers costs about the same-but with the layout of the home. The in-wall drains often used by residential washers, which use a pump to drain water, are not suitable for commercial washers, which use gravity to remove water, requiring the drain to be underneath the unit. Shady says that in most cases the wall-drain has a pipe that runs underneath the floor, but converting the pipe for use by a commercial washer can be expensive.

Shady recommends that facilities plan their laundry rooms for both commercial and residential washers, especially since it adds only a few extra hundred dollars to construction costs.

Commercial washers do have staff labor costs associated with their operation. Yet Shady sees a possible market ing advantage to them: "An owner could highlight that he has commercial washers by saying, 'One of the services that makes us different from the assisted living facility down the street is that we do your laundry for you.'" This can be a potent argument for facilities charging a resident upwards of $2,500 a month. On the other hand, there are always those residents who prefer the control and quick convenience of do ing their own laundry. If that's a strong sentiment in your marketplace, in-unit equipment might be the way to go. Shady says residential-style units are, in fact, popular with smaller facilities (25 units or under), and to maximize their effectiveness and keep residents happy, Shady emphasizes that the washers be located in areas near the residents' rooms to minimize walking distance.

Allied's Randy Zimring notes that many assisted living developers in his region opt to provide a common laundry area with three or four home-style washers and dryers and allow the residents to use them for free--and end up sorry they did so. "Elderly people can really ruin a machine by turning the timers the wrong way," he explains. One option to avoid that is a push-to-start button with no timing dial provided, available in at least one brand he markets.

"Another is a whole new technology that came to us recently from Italy--a combined washer and dryer in one machine. It dries the clothes using the same principles as an air conditioner, and requires no exhaust venting. All you need is access to hot and cold water lines and a drain. The only potential drawbacks are that it is not especially easy to operate and it requires a drying time of up to two hours, although this might not be a problem with residents who have time on their hands. It's about the size of an under-the-counter dishwasher and is cheaper to install than standard side-by-side or stacked equipment."

Zimring suggests that assisted living developers give more careful thought to their laundry equipment options than they have typically in the past. Shady agrees: "Planning is the key to success. Facility designers are experts in many aspects of the building, but not everyone is a laundry expert. So rely on industry experts to complement your facility designer."