National Clothesline

here is a profitable market out there just waiting to be tapped, and with little, or no, investment to get you started. Since all drycleaners are now into some form of wetcleaning, and they all have at least one laundry dryer and one front loader washer-extractor for shirts, or at least a home washer for basic wetcleaning of those garments requiring that procedure, that is all they need to get started in wash-dry-fold laundry service.

Is there a need for this service? You bet there is. Since most young couples are both working to hold on to a decent lifestyle founded upon large amounts of debt, they must do the household chores, household cleaning, maintain the lawn, wash the car and do the week’s build-up of laundry.

Well, there goes the weekend; it’s shot to pieces working at home. Even if they can afford a cleaning lady to come in on Saturday, she would consume too much time doing the laundry and not enough time cleaning the house (or apartment).

What to do? The answer is simple: “farm out” the laundry to our drycleaner who advertised a wash-dry-fold service.

The drycleaner has included in his ad the fact that there would be a considerable savings in utilities and maintenance on the equipment along with the most valuable savings of all — namely, personal time to do other things, including recreation.

Even in those families where the wife is a full-time homemaker and has to get the kids off to school in the morning and must be there to receive them when they return, it may be true that she has a cleaning lady come in once a week to do the “heavy work.” But how can the house be cleaned well if that cleaning lady has to do the family’s laundry? To do a thorough job on the laundry, it would take a good half a day.

What’s the answer? Take the family’s body laundry to the drycleaner along with the outer garments since the local drycleaner does wash-dry-fold laundry and will also press the collar and front button placket of the golf shirts for a nominal extra charge.

Note: Most people do their golf shirts at home with the other body laundry rather than pay the price of drycleaning, or wetcleaning, with complete pressing. If these shirts are partially dried, hung and shaped on a wooden hanger they are presentable, although pressing of the collar and front button placket will make them almost perfect.

Of course, if the volume of wash-dry-fold laundry service continues to grow you will need to add more drying equipment consisting of several small capacity, stacked, steam-heated laundry dryers in order to dry an individual order by itself with the invoice attached to the front. At least six four-bushel carts on casters will be needed to transport the laundry order from the dryer to the folding table, since the order must be kept together and separate from the other orders.

In my large volume plant at Ft. Meade, MD, I had a battery of 15 20-lb., stacked steam-heated laundry dryers in addition to three 50-lb. laundry dryers to service a fairly large volume of body laundry.

In the meantime, to test the market for this wash-dry laundry service, you can do the overflow bundles in a local coin-op since that facility will have a number of dryers to keep the orders together. Meanwhile, you can do a few bundles a day in your present washer-extractor and steam-heated dryer.

In my operation, I used laundry nets — one for whites and one for colors. Any suspected fugitive colors were placed in a third net to be washed in a cold water, short run, acid bath with neutral detergent and acetic acid.

The nets were assembled together on a series of pegs with the invoice above them, as you would drycleaning. The whites and colors were dried together, and the fugitives were dried alone.

The invoice and nets were marked with pre-printed marking tags for net bags with brass, or stainless steel, safety pins. The dried order was placed into a four-bushel, or six-bushel, cart with the invoice attached and then wheeled over to the folding and wrapping table.

You could perform the same functions, except on a much smaller scale, until your volume dictates a more elaborate setup. With the proper equipment, one person can turn out a lot of bundles, and, in the beginning, you could utilize your present employees until your increased volume requires a permanent person or persons.

At the counter, a separate invoice would be prepared for the wash-dry-fold service, which would come to you in either a cloth or paper bag.

At the marking area, the bundle would be broken down into the three categories, placed into nets and the nets marked with the special marking tags attached by large safety pins. If you prefer, you can use regular pre-marked marking tags and #3 safety pins.

The master marking tag is stapled to the invoice similar to a drycleaning order, and you can assemble the nets by putting a hanger through the safety pin and hanging the net on a regular assembly clip with the invoice attached to the top of the clip as with drycleaning.

If you run routes, this service would be very popular with your customers, especially if you give them a good deal on their golf shirts being semi-finished.

When designing your wetcleaning department make sure you include a double tray for soaking and hand washing, with a scrub table attached for brushing.

A top-loader washer should be used also as an extractor for the hand washing and brushing in addition to processing a few fragile or fugitive-dyed garments.

The larger washer-extractor must be equipped with an inverter drive for multiple speed washing and extracting, and you must have a tensioning type steam-air form finisher, or wind whip, to condition garments for easy pressing. Finally, you need a heating cabinet with shelves and a rack for lay down and hang drying of fragile garments. There is good cabinet, which is electrically heated, available at a reasonable price.

Note: My spotting video, “The Caplan Method of Stain Removal,” which includes my comprehensive text and handy spotting board reference available in English, Spanish and Korean (video only in Korean) from the Golomb Group, c/o Dennis McCrory, 7664 Plaza Court, Willowbrook, IL 60521, phone (800) 679-5856. A lecture and demonstration are presented similar to my classes over the years at IFI and SDA. This video and text are ideal for training inexperienced spotters as well as a good review for experienced spotters. Digesting with enzymes, bleaching, oxidized oil stains and caramelized sugar stains are discussed and demonstrated. An article on “Removing Spots in the Cleaning Machine” and an article on “How to Increase Production in the Spotting Department” are included in the comprehensive text book.

Also available from the Golomb Group, in English and Spanish, is my video on step-by-step shirt finishing which includes my comprehensive text in loose-leaf form outlining each procedure for single-operator and two-operator cabinet shirt unit using a cabinet sleeve press. Proper forming of the collar using heated collar formers is demonstrated. Each lay is demonstrated for top quality with very little effort by the operators. Attractive detailing and packaging of the hangered shirt, padding, steam pressures and timing are all discussed. A unique wash formula for whiter whites and brighter colors and removal of grease and body oils is included in the loose-leaf text book.

My experience with shirts spans over 55 years with US Army as a principal laundry and dry-cleaning concessionaire at Ft. Meade, MD, where average shirt volume was approximately 10,000 per day. We were constantly “sampled” for excellent quality in both finishing and washing in laundry and drycleaning and in tailoring. We operated our own 40,000-sq.-ft. plant for over 35 years.

Stan Caplan has over 35 years experience in his own high volume dry-cleaning, laundry and tailoring plant and two package plants with adjoining coin-operated laundry and drycleaning. Stan is the former chief instructor at the International Fabricare Institute, the Southwest Drycleaners Association and various other trade association-sponsored schools throughout the US and courses in Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Singapore and Hong Kong. Stan offers consulting, training and engineering services in all areas from customer service area to the boiler room since 1981. His complete system withtotal quality management will produce maximum efficiency, economy and product excellent quality. Stan can be reached at 3601 Clarks Lane, Suite 307, Baltimore, MD 21215-2731, phone/fax (410) 358-0870. His e-mail address is stancap100@aol.com.