Running an in-house commercial laundry isn’t exactly a glamorous gig—it’s more about making sure costs don’t run wild with every wash. Facilities like hotels, gyms, and healthcare centres rely on their laundry operations to be efficient without sending the budget down the drain. Luckily, a few smart tweaks can help keep things lean, clean, and even a little bit green.
From trimming water use to optimising chemical dosing and nailing preventive maintenance, you can make your laundry operation work a little harder—without all the extra spin,
It's not as hard as you might think. In fact, if saving money was this easy everywhere else, accountants would be out of a job.
1. Reducing Water Waste: Efficient Use and Recycling
Water use is a significant expense in a commercial laundry, but with Speed Queen’s smart technology, you can save water without compromising on clean results.
• Be Smart with Water Levels: Speed Queen’s programmable controls allow precise adjustments to water levels based on each load’s size and soil level, ensuring you don’t use more water than necessary.
• Water Recycling Systems: If you’re handling high volumes of laundry, consider implementing a water recycling system. By capturing and filtering rinse water for reuse in the next cycle, you can save substantial amounts on your water bill—a real win for facilities aiming to cut costs without cutting quality.
• Routine Leak Checks: Even a minor leak can add up over time. Regularly inspecting hoses, valves, and connections on all machines ensures any leaks are caught and repaired before they inflate your water bill. And watch out for leaks that quietly drain into floors or hidden areas—they’re the sneakiest budget busters.
2. Optimising Chemical Use: Efficiency Without Waste
Laundry chemicals are necessary but can be optimised to avoid waste. With Speed Queen’s features, you can keep costs low while maintaining top-quality washes.
• Customisable Chemical Dosing: Some Speed Queen machines allow for programmable chemical dosing, which means you can control precisely how much detergent, softener, or disinfectant is used per cycle. This saves you from overuse, ensuring you only use what is needed.
• Cycle-Specific Programming: Different fabrics and soil levels call for different wash cycles. Some Speed Queen machines allow you to customise cycles based on fabric type and load requirements, ensuring the right amount of chemicals is used on each load and nothing goes to waste.
3. Energy Efficiency: Lowering Power Consumption
Energy costs can pile up quickly in a busy laundry room, but Speed Queen’s energy-efficient designs help keep your power bill in check.
• High-Speed Extraction: Speed Queen machines use high-speed extraction to remove more water from loads before they hit the dryer. This reduces drying times and energy consumption, keeping your operation efficient and your energy costs lower. Soft-mount machines from Speed Queen can even achieve over 500 G’s in force, significantly reducing dry times.
• Adjusting wash cycle temperatures - optimising them to ensure you aren't wasting money heating water more than is required to achieve your desired wash outcomes. Checking and calibrating cycles to your exact requirement will save money.
4. Preventive Maintenance: Minimising Downtime Costs
Unexpected breakdowns can disrupt workflow and raise costs. Speed Queen machines are built to last, but they still benefit from preventive maintenance.
• Durability by Design: Speed Queen’s heavy-duty construction means their machines are already built to withstand daily wear and tear. Scheduled preventive maintenance, like cleaning filters and inspecting belts, further enhances their reliability and reduces costly downtime.
• Support and Service Programs: Speed Queen distributors offer support and maintenance programs designed to keep machines in top condition. Regular maintenance catches minor issues before they become costly repairs, helping ensure smooth, uninterrupted operation.
5. Load Management: Maximising Machine Capacity
Proper load management ensures you’re getting the most out of every cycle, preventing inefficiencies and unnecessary expenses.
• Right-Sized Equipment: Speed Queen offers machines in a variety of capacities, so you can select the one that fits your daily volume needs. Matching machine capacity with your laundry load optimises water, energy, and detergent use, saving resources and reducing cycle times. Speed Queen distributors are experts in helping configure the right setup for your operation.
• Avoid Overloading and Underloading: Loading machines to their recommended capacity—neither too full nor too empty—ensures optimal performance and extends the lifespan of your equipment. Overloading increases wear and increases rewash percentages, while underloading wastes resources, so keeping it balanced is key.
6. Staff Training: Ensuring Efficient Use of Resources
Staff efficiency can directly impact costs, and Speed Queen’s user-friendly controls make it easy for team members to work efficiently.
• Simple, Intuitive Controls: Speed Queen’s user-friendly interfaces mean less time spent on training and fewer operational errors.
• Custom Cycle Settings: With programmable cycles, staff can select the appropriate settings for different loads with minimal adjustments, which improves efficiency and helps reduce time and resource waste. Getting it right is made simple and easy.
7. Automation and Technology: Investing in Long-Term Savings
Modern laundry operations benefit from automation, which can streamline processes and reduce costs over time. Speed Queen’s advanced features support this level of efficiency.
• Programmable Cycles for Consistency: Automation through programmable cycles helps maintain consistency in each wash, ensuring that loads are handled optimally every time without manual adjustments. This consistency reduces resource waste and time costs.
• Networked Management Systems: Some Speed Queen models offer the option of remote monitoring, enabling you to keep track of machine status, cycle progress, and any maintenance alerts. This helps you manage operations proactively and avoid costly interruptions.
8. Laundry Audits: Finding Hidden Savings
A laundry audit can reveal opportunities to cut costs that may not be immediately obvious, helping you identify inefficiencies and make strategic adjustments. By assessing your current setup, a laundry audit can pinpoint areas where you might be losing money and suggest improvements. Here’s how a laundry audit can keep your operations efficient:
• Identifying Workflow Bottlenecks: An audit can uncover workflow issues, such as unnecessary movement between machines, which slows down productivity. Streamlining your layout can lead to smoother operations and faster cycle times.
• Matching Machine Sizes to Volume Needs: Using the wrong machine sizes for your laundry load can lead to wasted resources or underperforming cycles. An audit will assess if your machine capacities match your actual needs, helping you optimise water, energy, and chemical use.
• Highlighting Underused Equipment: An audit can show you which machines are working overtime and which are underused, allowing you to balance the load across your equipment and extend machine lifespans.
• Pinpointing Energy and Water Waste: By examining cycle settings and machine efficiency, an audit can highlight where water and energy are being overused, allowing you to make adjustments that directly lower operational costs.
• Improving Maintenance Scheduling: Audits often reveal when machines are nearing performance dips, allowing you to schedule maintenance before small issues become expensive problems, reducing downtime and repair costs.
Conducting regular audits is a practical way to keep your laundry operation lean and effective, setting the stage for long-term cost savings and smoother day-to-day operations.
The authorised Speed Queen distributors in Australia have extensive experiencing in auditing laundry operations - regardless of the brand of machines the laundry uses. They usually provide this service for free. Rest assured, you'll get frank, honest advice - most of our distributors have been in business with us for over 50 years - reputation and building long term trust is critical to them.
Conclusion: Small Changes, Big Savings
Laundry may not be everyone’s idea of a thrill, but keeping costs down? Now that’s exciting. A few small tweaks—cutting back on water, fine-tuning chemical use, and keeping machines well-oiled—can transform your laundry operation into a true budget saver. With Speed Queen machines in your corner, you’re equipped for efficiency without the drama. Give your local Speed Queen distributor a call, and let them help you run the kind of laundry room that’s as smooth as a fresh press and as easy on the budget as it gets. Because as we said at the start, if saving money was this easy everywhere else, accountants would be out of a job.
Want to see how we can make your laundry more efficient? Get in touch.
