A Practical Guide to Hotel Laundry Water & Energy Audits

On-premise laundry (OPL) is a significant utility consumer for hotel operators. In an era of escalating costs and sustainability targets, a comprehensive audit is therefore a must in the hands of management. This brief guide outlines the main steps you need to assess consumption and pinpoint savings.

1. Establish Clear Baselines.

Begin with 12 months of utility bills collected. Make your most fundamental metric: Cost per Kilogram (Total Water + Energy Cost / Total Linen Weight Processed). This is a solid baseline to compare the advancements to in future.

2. Focus on Core Equipment.

Washer-Extractors: Assess age and technology. Machines over 10 years old likely lack modern efficiency features. The key parameter is extraction G-force. Higher G-force (e.g., 300+ G) removes more water, directly reducing drying energy by up to 20%. This one thing will greatly affect how much you use all of the thermal energy in your laundry.

Tumble Dryers: Check that automatic moisture sensors are functional; you don’t have to waste energy in your tumble dryer by over-drying. See if heat recovery systems are installed or feasible to retrofit.

Hot Water System: Look for leaks, and see to it that all lines are insulated. A sizable part of energy goes to heating water. 

3. Review Key Operational Practices.

There can be technical efficiency that is undermined by how we operate day-to-day:

• Load Factoring: The efficiency per kilogram falls off significantly underloading machines (less than 80 per cent of their designed capacity).

• Wash Formulas: Test whether lower-temperature cycles can be used on lightly soiled linen.

• Maintenance: Clogged lint filters in dryers add time. For effectiveness, regular maintenance must never slacken out for that, even if you need to do regular maintenance a lot.

4. Break down actions and measure ROI. 

Put research into a tiered plan:

For capital requests concentrate on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Contemporary high G-force washers along with efficient dryers often provide convincing payback through integrated water and energy savings and increased reliability.

Conclusion

This structured audit turns your OPL from an area of cost center to a strategic efficiency area. Defining the data, zeroing in on most necessary machines and minimizing operations can directly enhance profitability and achieve sustainability goals. This process delivers the kind of objective data that will allow them to make operational changes and strategic investments.