Flexibility

Hiring linen from a commercial laundry allows you to adjust linen volumes up and down to meet the “peaks and troughs” of your business. Owning your own linen would mean additional capital outlay purchasing extra linen to cover for the potentially busiest periods. There will be occasions where you require additional items not normally used, such as table linen, for that special event. Linen hires companies can organise such requirements at short notice.

Linen hire gives you additional flexibility should your requirements change. For example, you might want to upgrade your linen to cater to a different market. You might change table or bed sizes which would require different sized linen. Hiring linen gives you the ability to switch items without additional investment or writing off existing stocks.

Capital Expenditure.

Purchasing linen for your property is a major upfront cost, which when added to the significant outlay for the purchase and install of your on-premise laundry, not to mention the real estate it takes up results in a considerable Capital Expenditure.

By using a linen hire company, you avoid this upfront investment, paying for the service monthly only after the linen has been used. This frees up capital to invest in other areas of your business.

Full Laundry Costs.

When making a comparison between linen hire and OPL, (on-premise laundry), it is very easy to overlook some of the associated costs at the planning stage which, unfortunately, don’t become clear until the OPL is operational.

The basic, unavoidable, costs of operating your OPL are:

• Labour

The biggest and fastest rising cost for running a laundry is labour. With training, increases in minimum wage and pension contributions, labour is ever increasing.

• Utilities

Electric, gas, and water are ever-increasing costs for your OPL.

• Washing Detergency

Quality washing Chemistry is key to successful and effective laundering. Commercial laundries use professional Chemical suppliers with the latest dosing equipment. Most of this is only available at scale so unachievable to the same degree with a small OPL.

• Machine maintenance, repairs and replacements

Machines need to be maintained on a very regular basis to reduce costly downtime. If a critical machine is out of commission for any length of time your linen is unavailable causing housekeeping problems and even lost revenue through unlet rooms, etc. As the machinery ages replacements need to be factored in so is an ongoing cost.

• Replenishing Linen stocks

Linen doesn’t last forever. Depending on how well it is looked after it will normally only lasts between 80 and 100 washes. On-going linen replenishment is essential.

• Real Estate

Frequently overlooked, but worthy of consideration. Bearing in mind the scale required to house an OPL, what else could space be used for. For example, would a Spa generate a better return than the saving on linen hire?