Laundry Equipment Buying Guide for Care & Nursing Homes
We know how important laundry equipment is to your care or nursing home. Providing the right care requires the right equipment. But where do you start?
If you’re thinking about reviewing your laundry facilities, using a specialist and professional laundry equipment company can make all the difference. With WASHCO’s handy buying guide, find out how to choose the right solution for your home.
What laundry equipment will you need?
The first step is to look at the capacity of your laundry. Is it still right for your care or nursing home and are the machines you’ve had in the past the right size? If you’ve extended your home, or the needs of your residents have changed, then they may no longer be fit for purpose.
The general rule is that a care home will need 0.5 kilos of capacity per resident, however, this will vary depending on the type of home. If we look at a home with 16 residents, for example, a Nursing / Dementia home would require 0.75kg capacity per person, a Care Home would have a 0.5kg capacity, and a Residential home would have a capacity of 0.4kg. This shows that a nursing or dementia home may have more laundry per resident, whereas residential homes may have a lower requirement.
While the number of machines may vary, there are generally three types of equipment that you will need for the smooth running of your care home’s laundry: commercial washing machines, tumble dryers, and ironing products.
Know the needs of your team
Before you buy or rent any commercial laundry machines, we always recommend talking to your laundry staff. With experience handling laundry duties day in and day out, they will know where any challenges might be and the range of pain points that impact efficiency. It’s also helpful to understand their processes to see if there’s an opportunity for changes or training to improve how the laundry works. If you’re unsure about how things should be running, we can offer free resources and equipment training for all laundry staff members.
Think about the following: how often is laundry collected from residents’ rooms each day? What sortation system do you use to separate foul and infected laundry from normal laundry? What are the hours of operation and shift patterns in your laundry?
All of these questions and more will help you and your specialist laundry equipment company better understand the tight timings and intricacies of your laundry system.
Laundry frequency
On average, laundry in a care home is operated for 8 hours per day, 7 days a week – a frequency of washing and drying that is much higher than most establishments. The type of laundry processed also varies throughout the day, whether it’s washing sheets, replacing towels or drying resident clothing.
This means it is usually better to have a mix of washing machines rather than one large machine to manage your capacity. The right equipment makes it easier to process different types of linen according to their textile family and allows you to handle all sizes of loads.
Separation and sorting
How big is your laundry room? Creating designated areas with adequate space for separating, sorting, and storing linens is crucial for efficient laundry operations. A well-lit sorting area equipped with bright white lights also makes it easier for your team to easily spot stains and correctly separate items from each other.
Ensure your laundry room has a “soiled/in” door and a “clean/out” door for easy separation of used and clean clothes. Try to allocate one-third of the space for the “wet” side, where you can handle dirty clothes, and two-thirds for the “dry” side, where you can sort and store your clean laundry. This setup will help to keep your space organised.
We can help with planning by carrying out site surveys to understand where efficiencies are being lost and how areas can be improved e.g. restructuring of laundry room layout so staff can easily switch from one machine to another.
Adhering to infection control requirements
Laundry separation and sorting are especially important in care home environments. When washing the laundry of multiple residents, you increase the risk of cross-contamination with the worst-case scenario of causing an outbreak. Because of this, there are strict Government legislations in place to avoid the spread of bacteria or viruses.
Separate trolleys should be available to distinguish between clean, used, and soiled laundry. Clean linen should be stored in a dry area above floor level away from used linen. When handling laundry, you should always wear gloves and an apron while performing hand hygiene. Used linen and clothing must always be in laundry bags and baskets, not loose on the floor.
Choosing the right machines
Matching your care home needs to the right machines can have a huge impact on cost savings, efficiencies and space utilisation.
When WASHCO was first approached by Broadmead Rest Home, optimising their laundry and reducing ongoing costs was of top priority after a negative experience with a previous supplier. Since helping the care home with the installation of WASHCONNECT, the management have been able to meet capacity requirements, manage budgets with a clear service plan and gain full visibility of their laundry operations.
Read on to learn more about why size, quantity and capacity are so important when choosing the right machine.
Size
Investing in laundry machines that can handle different load sizes can be a game-changer when it comes to efficiency. As mentioned before, it can be a huge help in processing everything from bed sheets to smaller personal clothing items but it’s important to realise the benefits on costs. Being able to run one larger load instead of two smaller loads means you can save on both water and power usage bills for washing machines as well as heating costs for dryers.
We have a broad range of washers available suited to your laundry room’s needs. Our smaller units are perfect for limited spaces where your equipment needs to work hard while larger machines can handle heavier capacity requirements.
Quantities
Aside from saving on costs, having the right number of equipment also ensures you avoid having more machines than necessary so space can be organised more efficiently. If your laundry staff find that they hardly use some of the machines available, maybe it’s time to downsize and utilise the space better for separation and sorting instead.
On the other hand, if your care home has significantly grown in size during recent years or it’s becoming a struggle to separate contaminated clothing through different machinery, take a look at upsizing to meet the growing demands.
Capacity
Capacity is the amount of washing required by each resident and depending on the size of your care home or specialty of care, this number could be much higher or lower than the average of 0.5kg per person. This will ultimately decide how many machines you need and what size loads you will have to accommodate.
Not sure what capacity you need in your care home? Try out our care home calculator – all you need to do is choose your type of home, for example, nursing, care or residential, and the number of residents for a simple calculation of your laundry capacity.
Planning your laundry room needs
We know that the planning process can be a little complicated, so we’ve put together some key things to think about when it comes to your laundry room layout and needs.
Washing machine requirements
Water requirements vary depending on the machine’s capacity but it is ideal to have a cold and hot water feed with good pressure located within 1m of the machine. Drainage should always fall away from the machine, regardless of whether it has a drain pump or gravity drain. Most washing machines in a care environment require a dedicated hardwired power supply, such as a three-phase source, rather than running on a 13 amp plug.
Dryer requirements
Dryers can be powered by gas or electricity, which affects their service requirements. Vented dryers must use ducting for exhaust while Gas-heated dryers must follow Gas Safe regulations for ducting and require a source of make-up air. Heat pump dryers may need a cold water source and drainage, depending on the model.
Floor plans
When planning your laundry room layout, consider locating it on the ground floor for easier installation, maintenance, and access. It’s best to place the laundry away from high-traffic areas like main entrances, outdoor seating, offices, or bedrooms. This helps in maintaining infection control by keeping it at a safe distance from food preparation areas to prevent cross-contamination. Ventilation is crucial, so having at least one external wall for proper venting and natural light from windows can create a pleasant working environment.
Funding your machine
You’ve got the equipment all set up – now it’s time to look at how you’d like to fund your machine. You have the option of buying the laundry equipment outright by purchasing or choosing the option of renting.
With no upfront cost, renting might be the way to go for your care home. Your monthly fixed costs will include both equipment and service making budgeting easier than ever. Plus, with contract lengths built to suit you, the expenses can be spread over a longer period of time. If you’d like to upgrade during the rental period, you’ll just need to add a small adjustment to your usual payment.
Service Plans and Maintenance
Once everything has been installed, consider maintenance and repair to ensure the longevity of your machines for many years to come. We recommend choosing the same company for both the supply and ongoing servicing of your machine. As the team will have taken the time to understand your business, your requirements and match you with the right solution, they will be able to provide a maintenance service that builds upon this knowledge making sure your downtime during a breakdown is kept to a minimum.
At WASHCO, we offer service and maintenance plans from fully comprehensive packages to annual maintenance checks or fixed cost options. Select the plan that meets your service needs – for example, a parts and labour warranty covers breakdowns, but it does not include preventative measures. Whatever you choose, you can be assured you’re in safe hands. Our nationwide team of highly qualified engineers are trained across a wide variety of brands including Miele, Speed Queen and Primus.
Why Choose WASHCO?
As specialists in commercial laundry equipment and installation, the team here at WASHCO have the knowledge and experience to support projects of all sizes. We’ll work closely with you to understand any challenges you may have, as well as conduct site surveys to ensure we are best placed to design a solution that works for you.
Whether you’re looking for commercial laundry machine buying, rental, installation or maintenance, get in touch with our team today to learn more about how we can help make laundry equipment simple for you.