On-premises laundry equipment: exploring the options.

You are in the "loving care" business. You cannot be caring without a ready supply of freshly washed linens, towels and uniforms. They can't be just washed, but must be well done, because appearance, odor and quality have a direct impact on residents' and visitors' perception of your facility. And laundry problems are always at the top of residents' lists of complaints.

The housekeeper and executive directors we speak with tell us their most common laundry problems are getting heavily soiled items, such as resusable diapers, clean and fresh; bottlenecks in production; frequent turnover of laundry room personnel, which too often translates into long and expensive training processes; and lost items in residents' personal laundry.

Additionally, they have concerns about the equipment itself. Their priorities for laundry equipment include: reliability (nothing spoils their day like an empty linen closet), quality of the output, cost of operation, and cost and maintenance of the equipment itself.

Reliability and cost of operation are functions of the equipment you have. Well-built machines that are maintained properly should give many years of reliable service, and should produce a good quality product without damaging linens. (Proper laundering, in fact, should extend linen life.) Cost of operation may be related to the age of the equipment. Once upon a time, nobody worried about how much electricity, gas or water they were consuming -- it was simply too cheap to be of concern. If your machines date back to that bygone era, they are probably gobbling up utilities at an alarming rate.

If you are experiencing an undue number of breakdowns, receiving a lot of complaints, or wasting a lot of energy, it may be time to weigh the costs of buying or renting replacements against the costs of downtime, repairs and high utility bills.

Choosing the right equipment, in fact, can go a long way toward solving other laundryroom problems, as well.

For instance, new washers may help your personnel turnover problem. Good, professional laundry equipment comes with a choice of control options: some use a program card to control water temperature, length of soak, rinse and wash cycles, etc.; others use a pre-programmed microprocessor, still others can be custom-programmed. Whichever option you choose, it should be easy for the operator.

Pre-programming saves on operator training time, and cuts down on damage. And there is no need for personnel to be running back and forth pushing buttons every few minutes, or with bottles of fabric softener, etc. Liquid or powder supplies should be automatically introduced at the proper time. Look for equipment that pre-dilutes laundry supplies and injects them into the bottom of the wash cylinder, rather than dumping them onto the top, where fabrics may still be partially dry. Bottom injection eliminates the chemical burns that shorten linen life.

Look, too, for high G-force extraction. These machines spin the cylinder much faster than in a standard washer, using cetrifugal force to squeeze more moisture out of fabrics, particularly those that retain it, such as towels. High G-force manchines can cut drying time by as much as half, boosting productivity and helping to eliminate bottlenecks in your laundry room.

Problem laundry, such as linen or diapers from incontinent patients, are most successfully done when the washer is programmed with a special soak/prewash cycle formulated especially for that purpose. The washer can be programmed to either continue with the regular wash cycle after the prewash, or to pause and wait for the load to be filled out with lightly soiled linen.

Residents' personal laundry is the single most recurrent complaint in nursing homes. Lost items are epidemic, particularly if the laundry room staff puts clothing in the same load with linens, as smaller items tend to get lost in the folds of larger pieces.

More and more homes are finding that a solution is to install small-capacity stacking washer/dryers on every floor for patients and/or their families to use. The stacking units fit in a minimal space, as little as five square feet. They can be fitted with or without coin meters. Front-load washers are accessible to wheelchair-bound individuals, who enjoy doing for themselves those things that they can. Stacking units should be timed so that the wash cycle takes the same amount of time as the dry cycle, thus eliminating frustrating bottlenecks. Self-service patient laundries not only ease "lost article" complaints and provide a measure of occupational therapy, they relieve some of the burden on the laundry room staff.

No matter how clear-cut the case is for better washers, money is always an issue. In order to make a well-reasoned choice, you need to understand the difference between price and cost.

Price is the amount of money the dealer will ask you to pay for the equipment. It is a simple concept, but it does not begin to tell the whole story.

Cost, on the other hand, includes the price, plus the operating cost, plus the financing costs, plus the maintainance, divided by the equipment's life cycle, etc. In other words, the cost is the total amount of money you will have to pay to have and operate that piece of equipment. It is a truer picture of the situation.

Too often, cheaper price turns into higher cost, when poorly made equipment requires expensive maintenance, uses a lot of electricity or water, has a shorter life cycle, etc. Add the reputation of the manufacturer into the equation, too; the best warranty in the world is useless if the company is not there to back it up.

With that caveat, you can begin to consider the best way to pay for new washers. Whether you are considering a new on-premises laundry installation, or upgrading an existing one, equipment suppliers can offer you several choices for financing, leasing or renting (renting may include installation, parts and service). Your best alternative will depend on your own particular situation. Clearly, there are benefits and drawbacks to each option. Your individual situation will dictate the right course to follow.