How Long Do Front Load Commercial Washers Last in Laundromats?
July 26, 2024
Next time you hear a sales pitch from a manufacturer or distributor salesperson about the need to replace your fifteen-year-old equipment, you might consider the recently published claims of Alliance brand Speed Queen as to service length of its washers. They claim a twenty-five-year life on locations averaging up to ten turns per day.
This means, based on the unverifiable mystic world of estimates, that average Laundromat washers are turned on three times per day, and would therefore result in a Speed Queen washer having an approximate eighty years of economic life in a normal Laundromat. Even accounting for a claimed superior quality of an American labor produced washer, this information would lead credence to the idea that the true economic life of all brands of commercial and industrial washers turning three turns per day would be in excess of 35 years.
Keep in mind the claims of Alliance brand Speed Queen did not address the benefits of computer programs or perceived energy efficiency of newer models. Nor is the lower quality of wash resulting from lower water use ever considered in conversations related to energy efficiency. The failure rate of computer boards (consider the costs of these boards) in newer models because the enemy of computer boards are heat, vibration, moisture and lint, which washers have in spades. In the past, the expensive cost of one failing part was the two speed motor, now it’s frequently the very expensive computer board.
Just a thought to keep in the back of your mind when an enthusiastic salesperson suggests the need to replace your 15- to 20-year-old washers with the newly high-priced models. Wishing manufacturers would adjust their soaring profits downwards a little in the future, but in the meantime new stickers, bearings, dump valves, mixing valves and stainless-steel polish should be able to keep your current washers looking good and lasting a long, long time beyond fifteen years at a fraction of the cost of new washers.
I hope the comments, if any, in reply to this post can be addressed merely to the claims of the length of economic life and soaring cost of new machines of commercial and industrial washers instead of self-serving promotions of particular manufacturer preferences.