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Thread Number: 85912
/ Tag: Irons and Mangles
How Technology Has Changed Industrial or Commercial Laundries. |
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Post# 1104683 1/15/2021 at 22:20 (1,195 days old) by Launderess  (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Going back to beginning laundry has always been an labor intensive job. Commercial or industrial "steam laundries" had no end of battles with unions or other labor actions which in a way was a good thing. It ended some of the worse abuses by employers, but still the job is what it is.
Gradually thanks to technological advances laundries can crank out far more pounds of finished goods using less employees and lower costs. This is how things were done in 1940's Fast forward to 2014: One hospital still keeps to old ways: Then there is the modern way: | ||
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Post# 1104704 , Reply# 1 1/16/2021 at 01:45 (1,194 days old) by tolivac (greenville nc) |
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In those modern laundrys with automated equipment-instead of launderers and laundresses you would need IT guys and techs to take care of the equipment rather than the laundry.Not like the older video where the laundry people did the work!Interesting videos! | ||
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Post# 1104707 , Reply# 2 1/16/2021 at 03:02 (1,194 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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So much of the process has been automated at larger commercial or industrial laundries. But some things still need to be done by hand, such as getting things onto ironers..... You can feed things onto various clamps or whatever, but that still takes human hands.
Thing is none of this equipment comes cheap, so unless a place has the volume (or can go out and get it), to make ROI, it becomes pointless. This is reason why you're seeing in more and more markets one or maybe a few huge laundries dominate various commercial or industrial. This or maybe a place like Disney World/Land, a hospital or healthcare network will have one large laundry for entire system. | ||
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Post# 1104717 , Reply# 3 1/16/2021 at 06:39 (1,194 days old) by tolivac (greenville nc) |
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HMMMMMM-wonder how these laundry places are doing under Covid-Thought Disney World was shut down and closed. Same with the motels/hotels.BUT---bet the laundry places are BUSY with laundry from the hospitals and other care provide places. | ||
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Post# 1104754 , Reply# 5 1/16/2021 at 16:47 (1,194 days old) by Frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie) |
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Question: Do people in metropolitan areas still send laundry out to be done? I have lived in very small towns all my life and no such service was available. I do recall a handful of wives sending their husbands’ dress shirts to the cleaners when I was a kid (1960s). The vast majority—my mom included—washed, starched and ironed dress shirts themselves.
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Post# 1104764 , Reply# 6 1/16/2021 at 19:30 (1,194 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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"Do people in metropolitan areas still send laundry out to be done?"
Ohh yes! Can't speak for elsewhere but in our neck of woods options range from corner Asian laundries/dry cleaners to large commercial laundries. Then you have app based services. bynext.co... And many more: www.google.com/searchQUES... This place recently closed: www.nbcnews.com/specials/... Same labor problems that always have been at laundries still persist: www.nytimes.com/2019/08/2... Across the pond in UK: techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/oxwash... Laundromats however are going way of Dodo, at least around here: www.crainsnewyork.com/art... Overall aside from wash and fold services the other staple of laundry households still send out is shirts. | ||
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Post# 1104773 , Reply# 7 1/16/2021 at 20:46 (1,194 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.) |
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Post# 1104780 , Reply# 8 1/16/2021 at 22:14 (1,194 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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On a matter near and dear to us on this forum, prior to WWII many homes still sent out their laundry, not just those in urban areas. Yes, there were washing machines, ironers, and everything else, but many housewives/households clung to old ways. That is soon as there was any extra money to be found in budget laundry was first household chore most got shot of....
Little by little appliance manufacturers began getting at housewives. All those advertisements about Madam being first line of defense in her home against germs and disease. To protect all she held near and dear a truly caring wife and mother would do her washing at home instead of sending it out. And thanks to new appliances she had no reason for not doing so, well until WWII came along. That event saw an unprecedented push of women into workforce, so some household chores fell by the wayside, including laundry. No worries however because once war was over the post war era saw a huge push towards domesticity with women married, back in the home, keeping house and of course doing their own laundry. Soon as war time restrictions were lifted manufactures flooded the market with all sorts of laundry appliances especially fully automatic washing machines and clothes dryers. Looking back the post war era until about maybe 1970's was the heyday for laundry appliances. We know what followed... The post war boom began to wane as pent up demand for appliances decreased and the boom in new housing also did same. What would be left is pretty much what drives market today; replacements and or new home construction. What followed was a shaking out of the domestic laundry appliance market. What wasn't shut down ended up being bought by one company or another. This explains how now only a handful of white goods manufacturers (such as Whirlpool or Electrolux) own scores of former great appliance brand names. | ||
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Post# 1104787 , Reply# 9 1/16/2021 at 22:22 (1,194 days old) by whirlykenmore78 (Prior Lake MN (GMT-0500 CDT.)) |
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Eugene:(Laundry service in a Metropolis)
Here in the Twin Cities most all Dry Cleaning shops and attended Laundromats offer (Wash, dry, fold) Drop Off Laundry service. Laundry done is commonly billed by the pound (KG) or item washed. Some do the laundry in house (Laundromats and DC stores connected to a DC plant) while others send it out to a Central Processing Plant as you are dropping off laundry or DC at a satellite store. There are many of these services in the Minneapolis/ST. Paul area but I do not know the percentage of the population that utilises them.
WK78 | ||
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Post# 1104872 , Reply# 12 1/17/2021 at 19:00 (1,193 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage) |
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Gold standard for hospital or healthcare linen is still a separate washer/extractor then dryers and or ironers. However that system is energy, water and labor intensive so modern tunnel (batch) washers are making huge inroads.
That being said there are issues with doing healthcare linens in batch washers. First and foremost not everything can go through those machines. Small items such as things from nursery or pediatrics cause issues, so are usually done in a traditional washer/extractor. Some places mix it up with both, tunnel washer and also stand alone washer/extractors and dryers also for doing "small" loads such as nursing home or other resident's laundry. Since idea with most batch washers is that water moves in one direction with linen in another loads must follow a certain logical sequence. You cannot do say a load of really fouled linen (such as poopy diapers) just before less soiled laundry due to contamination risks. Tunnel washers vary in ability to meet certain protocols for "disinfection" of laundry. Indeed it has been found some "germs" can survive within a tunnel washer to infect everything that comes through machine. Unlike a stand alone washer/extractor which when heats water the entire machine warms up, with batch washers usually only the water bath in particular compartment reaches certain temps. Subsequent compartments (such as say a lower temperature rinse after hot or very wash), aren't bothered. | ||
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