Laundry Room Rule #4: Keep the Machines Working

Rule number four is an obvious one, however one that is harder to maintain than most.
This is because of the expenses involved in hiring a technician,
the skill level of yourself or your maintenance people, and the fact you are not able to stand next to the machines 24 hours a day so it is harder to know when machines get broken right away.


Perhaps as a landlord or building manager you do not see laundry machines as a valuable asset. Perhaps they have always been looked at as simply a convenience for your tenants. However I would like to offer a slightly different view. Pretend for a moment that you only have one washer and one dryer. Let’s say you charge two dollars for each one. So the average person who comes down to wash some clothes is going to spend at least four dollars. Two dollars to wash and two dollars to dry. Let’s pretend that the machines get used an average of once per day. That is a total of four dollars per day. Multiply that by 30 days in a month and you have $120 per month in revenue. Multiply that by 12 and you have $1440 per year. Let’s pretend the machine cost $1200 to buy. With just one person using it each day you have paid off that machine in less than a year. The rest of the time that you on that machine, outside of a percentage of money that you allocate towards gas and electric and water, the rest is all profit.
Now let’s pretend the washer is broken but the dryer works. You’re not losing two dollars, you are really losing four dollars. Most people are not going to just use one machine and not the other, especially since they do not wanna carry wet clothes around or have no place to dry clothes or have to wash clothes at your place and then carry wet clothes someplace else to dry. So for every day just one machine is down here losing four dollars. Let’s pretend the machine is broken because of some user error, part, or just simply unplugged by a tenant.
The machine is down for four days a month. Multiply that under $16 a month. That may not sound like much, but as a percentage of your income in an entire month it is over 10%. Take that $16 a month and times that by 12 and now you’re looking at $174 $172 in losses for the year. You’ve just delayed paying off your washer or dryer by that much longer. You have also inconvenienced your tenants and by forcing them to try a laundromat you might have lost the income from that tenant completely.


You may have noticed that I did not include any repair costs in the above scenario. Typically you would hope that you would not have many repairs and the ones that you would have you can take care of yourself. Things like coin jams, belts, door hinges, even control boards are things that anyone on your staff should be able to change. All of the machines today are generally easy enough to maintain that such repairs can be done by People on staff. This is why I like to encourage people when they have washing machines in an area that they can potentially be abused by tenants weather on purpose or by miss use, to purchase new machines rather than used. Used machines save you some money in the beginning, however they do not generally have a warranty for parts or service that last the length of the time that she would like that washer to remain in use. I personally think it is a much better investment on a new machine, because most companies offer a three or five year parts warranty on that machine when you buy it. I like to encourage people to purchase a new machine, and then order some spare parts. You get them for free, so take advantage of it. Order an extra belt, or buttons, or a soft drawer, or even a control board. Keep them handy in a nice place so that if something does break the odds are you will have a part to fix it faster than waiting for someone to mail things to you, especially in today’s supply chain situation.
When the warranty runs out continue to run the machines you purchased until either they break completely or you run out of spare parts. When either of those situations happens time to get a new machine.


Now I can’t see all of you that are reading this article, however I bet that some of you are thinking to yourself this guy is in laundry equipment sales, of course he is going to say we should buy a new machine. Yes it is true that I am in Laundry sales, however if you get a used machine and something breaks, already stashed, you have to wait for a service technician or at minimum find the part that you need to order and then wait for it to arrive provided that you know that the broken part you are ordering will indeed fix the problem if you get a used machine and something breaks, unless you happen to have the parts already stashed, you have to wait for a service technician or at minimum find the part that you need to order and then wait for it to arrive provided that you know that the broken part you are ordering will indeed fix the problem.
Let’s pretend best case scenario. Your washer breaks on a Tuesday. You notify a service company immediately on Tuesday that you need a service technician to come take a look. The service technician arrives Wednesday. They find the problem and order the part. The parts company gets the order on Wednesday and says they will overnight the part to you. The The part arrives on Thursday. The service technician comes back on Friday after you have confirmed with their company that the spare part did indeed arrive. Your washer is now been out for days. And the scenario that I mentioned above you’re looking at $16 of loss Plus the cost of the service person which is usually somewhere around $100 per hour and the cost of the part itself. When you buy new, the parts are included for free for a certain amount of time depending on the manufacturer. If you take my advice and place an order for some spare parts that you will commonly need, then you have them on hand and your washer will not be down as long and you are not out the cost of the parts for the service technician.
Keep the machines running and you keep the income flowing and your tenants happy. Happy tenants lead to less problems, and good tenants in the future.

Ev

A Heck of A Nice Guy

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Laundry Room Rule #3 Keep It Safe

 

Rule #3: Keep your laundry room safe, seems like a no-brainer.
You as the landlord assume that your building is already safe and you have nothing but good people in it so you don’t need to worry about the laundry room right?

"Safe" means a couple of different things for this rule:

A. Keeping the laundry room well lit helps customers feel safe because they aren't tripping on anything, banging their shins on corners, slipping on soap and water on the floor, being able to find the room and machines (see previous post about rule #2: Keeping the room well lit rule-2-keep-it-well-lit).

B. A well lit laundry room is also safe because it helps keep stalkers and attackers from hiding in corners or behind machines. Have cameras in the laundry room, both visible and invisible, so if there ever is a problem you have evidence to protect the victim and yourself.

C. Good lighting means good advertising! 
A well lit laundry room allows customers to see how clean it is rule-1-keep-it-clean, and can give them a sense of home and hearth. It also reflects well on you as a landlord and the other tenants if everyone does their part to keep it clean. 

EV
A Heck of A Nice Guy