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Athletic Market Case Study

New Laundry Proves MVP at Westville High

May 2004  |  Download case study as a PDF

New Continental on-premise laundry equipment at Westville High School in Westville, Ind., properly cleans more than the school's regular influx of soiled athletic uniforms and warm-ups. The equipment also effectively tackles heavy-duty loads, including custodial mop heads and kitchen towels—items previously outsourced at a cost of more than $6,000 per year.

Bill Berger, athletic director and head coach of boy's basketball, spurred Westville to look into new equipment in order to better handle the large loads of laundry generated by its athletes. Westville's home-style, top-load washer just wasn't making the grade.

Cutting Costs; Providing Wash Consistency

“I didn't want to see laundry going home anymore,” says Berger. “There were so many people washing the uniforms different ways they were coming back different colors. I wanted a laundry facility here for the entire athletic program.” The idea, he says, was to find equipment that could handle all of the school's laundry needs, including bulky and hard-to-clean items.

Bob Hale of Haiges Equipment, a Continental distributor in Indianapolis, worked with Berger to install a 30-pound capacity, high-efficiency Continental Pro-Series™ washer-extractor and 60-pound capacity drying tumbler. The new equipment, centrally located in Westville's athletic training room, has eliminated the expense associated with sending towels and mop heads out for cleaning, and greatly simplified the process of getting dirty team jerseys and warm-ups clean. “Our old top-load washer took too long and we couldn't put as much laundry in it,” Berger maintains.

Doing Laundry in Less Time

Now, uniforms for the entire Westfield basketball team are cleaned in one load using the industrial-grade, front-load washer-extractor. Saving time and streamlining the laundry process was critical, according to Berger. The new Continental Pro-Series Washer-Extractor features an easy-to-install, soft-mount design that generates extract speeds of up to 387 G-force. In doing so, Pro-Series Washer-Extractors can cut resulting dry time up to 40 percent by removing more water from every load. Traditional hard-mount washer-extractors, on the other hand, only produce extract speeds of 85-150 G-force; top-load home-style washers fare even worse.

“Now, it's a lot faster to get the laundry done,” says Berger. So much water is removed during extract, that a load of uniforms takes just 18 minutes to dry, he says. “And that's at the lowest heat setting.” It used to take twice that long.

Since the installation, all uniforms are washed the same way each time, and Berger doesn't have to worry about missing uniforms that aren't returned to the school. The programmability of the Continental equipment not only makes for ease-of-use, according to Berger, it allows Westville to tailor how towels, jerseys, sweats or mop heads are washed and dried.

Easy to Use and Program

The washer automatically injects the right chemicals (detergent, bleach and fabric softener) at the appropriate cycle and water temperature, says Berger. This eliminates wasted detergent and ensures a consistent and thorough cleaning every time, no matter who is doing the laundry—student or custodian. Similarly, the drying tumbler is programmed for temperature and duration, according to load type. Operators just push a button and go. “The custodians love the equipment,” says Berger, “because it makes things a lot easier.”

And Berger appreciates having more control over the uniforms, which need to last nine seasons. “I want the kids to look good,” he says. “The way we're washing now will help the uniforms look better longer.” That's because the front-load Continental washer-extractor, according to Berger, is gentler on fabric and gets laundry cleaner than the school's old topload.

By installing new on-premise Continental laundry equipment, Westville not only realizes a $6,000 per year savings over sending laundry out, the athletic department avoids faded and discolored uniforms that may or may not make it back to school by game day.

“We try to do things to help the school system run more efficiently,” says Berger. “In a couple of years, we'll pay off the new equipment in the money saved by not sending laundry out.”

Athletic Market Articles

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