Retooling

Table 2 Factors Determining Choice of Retooling

Fresh and mint looking machines always attract customers to Laundromats and efficient machines attract Laundromat owners. So quite naturally equipment manufacturers drive people to retool/upgrade the equipment, regularly bringing into production new models, which are better looking, wash faster using less water and offer more flexible cycle options selection.

Replacing old washers with brand new seems to be the best possible option to get customers attracted to fresh looks of the store and get the owners satisfied with the efficiency of machines equipped with flexible, electronically advanced controls, and reliability of the new machines which don’t break as often as old ones and carry warranty on parts, so the owner can minimize the expense associated with replacement parts, repairs and maintenance.

For example, brand new Ipso washers are known for their distinctive look and utmost reliability. Not only you getting a steel frame, which provides stability to the washer (less vibration or shaking=less wear of components), the overall design of the machine makes it easy to maintain it, like for example, the bearing replacement is very mechanic-friendly. Since it is inverter driven, the electric use is very efficient (no currant spikes) and the motor does not get overloaded. The Micro20 computer control, which has been around for long and is familiar and recognizable, has been tuned to decrease chances of malfunction and offer a variety of programs to choose from increasing the water use per dollar efficiency. You can program each segment of the cycle, minimize the number of baths and have any additional feature, like hot water or additional rinse available for extra fee.

There are only two downsides of getting brand new equipment though – 1, its cost, 2, painstaking and costly removal and installation along with the necessary downtime of the Laundromat. Retooling a store with 100 units can run up to half a million dollars and take at least a week. The cost is immense, so that is why oftentimes Laundromat owners prefer to take the alternative route.

It is the DIY way where the owners, sometimes with the help of mechanics freshen up the existing machines to improve their looks. Cosmetic parts of the units that so appeal to the customers of a Laundromat have long been available from the laundry parts distributors. Be it a decal, a name strip, an instruction sign, a door gasket, a soap lid or even a whole front panel – it all is available to buy and install. So the first argument for getting new machines can be compromised with the so called “face lift” of the store. Getting stainless steel shiny looking front and top panels, new or maybe even custom made stickers and overlays definitely bring fresh and mint look to the machines. And keeping the old controls will be appreciated by the customers of the laundry who won’t be needing to get additional education on how to operate the new control of lets say brand new Wascomat Clarus model washer.

Reliability of the new equipment can be compromised by technical familiarity of the older machines and common availability and low cost of replacement parts. Wascomat Gen4 and Gen5 or Speed Queen/Unimac timer model washers have been out for so long that the majority of their mechanical problems and solutions have become biblical, replacement parts are considered common stock items among road technicians and rebuild or repair of the timer control, electronic components and motors is easily performed in most repair shops. Take the maintenance of new machines and find yourself looking for $800 computer controls where you are replacing them because of their software glitches while soft reset of the microprocessor is blocked by proprietary chip controllers. Manufacturers need your support before they introduce to you their new line of machines year after year bridging the life span of their equipment to 5-7 years, where you keep retooling and thus shrinking your operating profit.

Efficiency of the new equipment has not been compromised until now. There are several ways of water use efficiency increase for older, timer operated washers, which involve minor adjustments of the control tray and wiring, but they are far from being the answer. Here are the most common ones:

In 1991 Wascomat introduced a technical bulletin TB-160L called “Four options for conserving water and/or energy on w74, w124 and w184”. With the supplied kit consisting of the relay and harnesses and following the instructions you could eliminate the prewash cycle, increase wash time by 3 minutes, change hot fill to cold fill in rinse cycle, and shorten spin to 2 minutes. In addition to the adjustment capabilities of the water level control switches (pressure switches) savings on water are considerable. The downside is that kit is no longer available from Wascomat but if you replace it with some generic technology the customers of a Laundromat with this modification see that the prewash is getting skipped (timer dial just jumps to the wash -“no water” complain) and notice that the spin is shorter thus “the clothes are too wet”. It could turn them away.

Wascomat Generation 5 allows skipping prewash and 2^nd rinse by jumper modifications on the timer. Wasco even makes a cover kit to close off the prewash compartment in the soapbox to prevent customers putting soap there and “don not notice the change”. But again, the customer sees this change simply looking at the timer dial, which jumps through the skipped cycle creating an impression of “cheating” although this modification saves decent amount of water especially when pairing up with water level switch adjustment.

Alliance Laundry Systems also incorporated few possible modifications of their timer on Huebsch/Speed Queen/Unimac and Maytag Timer Operated washer lines. Following their Cabinet Hardmount Mechanical Timer Programming manual you could reduce or skip prewash, reduce wash and spin time, adjust the fill water temperature during rinses and adjust the water level during the wash cycle – all by jumping the terminals on the timer. On the downside customers see how the timer skips through the prewash like in Wascomat modification, and you are not able to eliminate one of the rinses.

All this is manufacturer-released knowledge, which certainly will be limited because it goes against their end of the day goal – sell new machines. But feeling a glimpse of the existence of possibility to adjust and/or convert existing technology to make it work more efficiently inspires. While doing a research on the existing ways to improve the water efficiency of the timer-controlled washers we also came across some custom modifications performed here and there across America. But the feedbacks leave much to be desired. Those changes usually come with side effects like intermittent door unlocks in the main wash cycle, water levels are all over the place as well as cycle times, intermittent skip of the second fill step (leaves soap in the second soap compartment) and so on. And we also found that lots of people get interested to get a hold of the solution to bring water use efficiency of the old washers to the level of new ones in these unfavorable economical times of ever increasing bills for water and ever growing price for the new equipment.

UCO is the new product, it was not available before, officially it launched only in 2012 after months of testings, research and development. It is an extremely reliable solid state device, backed with a 10 year manufacturer warranty. With proper tuning and installation UCO kit overrides the control of the washer and makes it run according to the customized software that is loaded to the UCO prior to installation. Software is custom for each laundry room and sometimes even for each machine, because almost every year of production brought some minor changes to the washers setup. So far its the only known technology that provides the water use efficiency without skipping cycle segments and keeping the total cycle time untouched so customers of the wash do not notice the change. Read more…

Of course if your washers are beat up, rusted and you feel yourself like on a train station when they go to spin because of greaseless bearings – UCO won’t work prevent water from leaking through the cracked water valves and rotten hoses; and “face lift” with new stickers and panels won’t make the noise come away and prevent motors from burning with overload. To obtain the desirable mix of good looks, reliability, and efficiency you may still have to retool the whole Laundromat, but not necessarily into brand new. Used mint condition washers with replaced bearings, belts, gaskets and cosmetics, UCO upgraded will make the Laundromat feel new, use water efficiently and all this for a fraction of the cost of the brand new machines.