RICHMOND, Ky. — Laundry managers are charged with dealing with many operational tasks, including managing their facility’s overhead costs.
According to David Chadsey, then-managing director at Laundry-Consulting.com, utilities are among the highest costs in many laundry facilities, second only to labor.
In an Association for Linen Management (ALM) webinar titled Managing Laundry Utility Costs, Chadsey analyzed the “primary utilities” many laundries use and pay for, including water, sewer, gas and electricity, and explored the factors behind these rising costs, as well as how managers can better handle their usage.
“Understanding these costs [and] what contributes to these costs allows us to be better managers and to be more successful in our operations,” he says.
MANAGING WATER COSTS
Usually, both water costs and sewer costs are billed on one invoice, according to Chadsey, and the combination is typically a laundry’s “largest utility cost.”
He says that, historically, conventional washer-extractors use between 1.5 and 2.5 gallons of water for every pound of linen processed.
“That amount of water used has a great deal to do with the soil load that we process, the classification, and the corresponding wash formula,” says Chadsey, explaining that usage will also depend on which segment of the industry a laundry caters to.
Laundries processing hospitality linens will have a different wash formula than those that process heavy-soil healthcare linens, he explains.
So what are some ways managers can cut water costs? First, Chadsey says, evaluate your wash formulas.
“During my tenure coming up through [the] industry, early on, I worked for a chemical supplier, and I found out pretty quickly that a client was willing to give me the opportunity to use a lot of different baths. I could get that laundry cleaner for a lot less cost on my chemical side,” he explains.
Another way to reduce water consumption is to combine a wash and a bleach bath, adds Chadsey.
“There are some bleach products that are very compatible with certain detergent products,” he says. “If you combine a wash and a bleach bath ... every one of these baths that we can eliminate, it’s significant in the amount of water that’s used in that formula.”
One other area Chadsey points to is managing a load’s water levels, which he says should “always be low when chemistry is added,” which can ultimately lead to a better wash quality.
“Any time there’s chemistry, our water levels should be low, because as there’s less water in there, that chemical concentration is going to be greater,” says Chadsey. “Also, with less water, you actually get more mechanical action.”
Before making the leap to changing a wash formula to save on water costs, Chadsey warns, it is “critically important” to involve your chemical representative, and to test the changes and the new formula’s effectiveness over time before making “wholesale changes on all the machines.”
Water reuse/reclamation equipment is another avenue that laundry managers can explore in their quest to save money on water, but Chadsey says that managers should do their homework before fully investing in the technology.
“With whatever water reuse [equipment] you may be looking at, it’s very important to understand what’s involved in the long term of running that,” he says.
“You need to understand what are the full requirements of implementing that. Oftentimes there [are] pits required, tanks or pumps. You may require additional water or drain valves on the washers.”
MANAGING SEWER COSTS
With regard to sewer costs, understand that laundries typically do not discharge the same amount of water as they use, according to Chadsey.
“What happens is the municipality, they assume you discharge what you use; they don’t typically meter the water going out of the sewer, they meter the water coming into your facility,” he says.
So there is the opportunity to mitigate these costs through tracking the amount of evaporation, which occurs during the laundry process and “results in actual sewer volume that is less than the water supplied.”
How much water a plant evaporates depends on operator efficiencies, according to Chadsey. And although there are formulas that can help operators estimate sewer volume, actual evaporation can be measured through the installation of a Parshall flume, which is connected to a laundry’s sewer line.
The cost for installation of such technology could be around $15,000, Chadsey says, but it will provide an accurate picture of the “actual sewer that flows out.”
Check back Wednesday for the conclusion!
Have a question or comment? E-mail our editor Matt Poe at [email protected].