WASH On Premise Laundry Equipment Page

If you have laundry equipment in your school, long term care facility, day care, hospital, or anyplace else that you need laundry equipment:
-washers
-dryers
-drain troughs
-ozone
-large chassis washers and dryers
-small chassis washers, dryers, and combo units
-rigid mount and soft mount washers

WASH has launched their new page for information: 

On Premise Laundry Equipment for ANY Business

How to ChangeMFR Buttons

Maytag MFR washers with inverter drive have been around for the better part of 20 years as of the writing of this article. If you have recently taken over a store or laundry room with this type of equipment in it they are generally great machines, but like all mechanical things you need to replace a part once in awhile. Do any of your machines have buttons that are missing or loose? Here is how you can fix them:

Unscrew the black Maytag name plate on the outside of the machine (the one with al of the printing on it. You should then see this:

Open up the top of the washer and move any plastic sheet covers to get at the board to remove several screws. There are a bunch and they are small so having a magnetized screwdriver will help save the frustration of screws falling down inside the machine:




You don't need to disconnect the board or any wires. Leave the board inside the machine. Just leave it leaning back and you will see two nuts from the screws in the front face plate.


Remove the screws from the front of the washer that hold the button plate on.
You might have to hold the nuts inside the machine to get the screws to come out.


The front button plate and membrane should now be loose.

Disconnect the ribbon wire at the bottom of the control board and the button plate and membrane should be loose.

Pull out the plate.

To replace the buttons use a flat head screwdriver to move the tabs connecting the buttons to the membrane and plate. Usually you only have to do this to the tab on one side and the set of three buttons and any debris should come right off.

Remove any debris that is sticking to the button membrane.

Very important! Check the membrane in the circles for dents and holes. The buttons shouldn't do this, but when a button falls off customers poke keys and fingers inside to hit the silver circle. IF you see holes or heavy indentation change out the membrane too because odds are you'll change out the buttons and that one button won't work because that circle is broken.

To put buttons back on, hook the peg on one side of the buttons into the notch on the plate and position the rest of the buttons so the locking tab is in the notch on the opposite side and press down.

To put the buttons back on reverse the process above.
Clean the plastic lens and the button plate so they are nice and clean.

Test all of the buttons by running various test cycles or selecting different options to make sure all of the buttons are working. Then screw the front faceplate back on. You are done!

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

Selling Your Laundromat How to Get Started pt 2 of 2

 

Once you have a general idea of what you want to charge for your store, and if you want to be a landlord and continue to own the property, the next question you have to decide is whether or not you wanna work with some sort of business broker or if you want to try selling your store yourself. As someone that has gone down both roads, working with a broker can make your life easier because you’re not dealing with all of the ticky tack phone calls and emails, plus you usually will have the ability to look over legal documents and access to a lawyer if you do not already have one. Your broker will usually have a list of websites where you can list your laundromat for sale. You can also set these up and advertise on your own. If you decide to sell your store yourself.

The trick with working with a broker is they want their commission. Some brokers take a percentage of the sale, some brokers are a flat percentage or dollar fee. If you have a small store, the price that you’re trying to sell your store at might not make sense for you to give up that much money for someone to help you sell. If your store is doing $100,000 in topline revenue , but you have a broker that automatically wants $20,000 to sell your store, is it worth it forgetting $20,000 worth of profit to not handle phone calls and emails? 

No matter how you decide to sell your store and what method you use to evaluate your store, there are four things that you definitely want to have ready before you even put your store on the market:
Number one is to make sure your distributor knows that you are selling and what the general details are, price while you’re selling, how you’re evaluating your store, property included or no, etc. 
Your distributor usually has some people that they are working with that are interested in buying a store. If you could be patient and don’t need to sell right away, let your distributor help you with leads.

The second is to decide if you want to seller finance your store. This can be a quick way to get a sale and usually you get a little higher price, however it will attract a lot of buyers that don't have the money and when something goes down they can't fix it. Not long afterwards you might be holding onto your store again because the new buyers didn't know what they were doing and ran your business into the ground or stripped all the cash out of it and left you with al the unpaid bills. I recommend you don't follow the self finance route unless the person you are selling to is someone that is already in the industry and works laundromats.

The third thing you need to do is make sure you have proof of whatever you are claiming your topline revenue or your net profit is. That might be in the form of tax returns or collection, sheets, or both. You might even keep track of the cycle counts on your machines. Whatever data you have, you’ll need to provide that to the buyer or whomever they are financing through usually.

The last thing that you want to do is make sure you have your own numbers set to go. What things do you need to pay off when you sell the laundromat  that are related to the laundry business so that you can walk away with the maximum amount of profit. What is your rock-bottom price? What are some factors in a buyer that will lead you to either saying yes or no to working with them, for example, will you work with buyers that are only looking for a land contract or buyers that are looking to get into the business for the first time  or buyers that may be are out of state. If you know who you’re willing to work with as a potential prospect for buying your store, you will then have an easier time sorting through potential leads.

Selling your Laundromat can be a tough thing. Like anything else in life, you are moving on to something else. Losing that store is in very parallel way, like losing a loved one. You put a lot of money and sweat equity into the business, and suddenly you won’t have that anymore. Take some time to grieve that loss as you sit on your chaise lounge with a nice rum drink in your hand on a beach somewhere, relaxing and letting the ocean breeze strip the smell of years of dryer sheets off of your skin and out of your pores.

To read part 1 click on the link:
Selling-your-laundromat-how-to-get started

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

Selling Your Laundromat How to Get Started pt 1 of 2

 

So you’ve made the decision to sell your Laundromat, or at least look into it. How do you value what your store is worth and what to charge for it? There are lots of ways to sell a business, especially laundromats. Here are three easy ways to get started and figure out what your store is worth as a starting point:

The first way to sell your laundromat is to come up with a price based on your top line revenue and a multiplication factor of 1 to 5. 
What does this mean?
For example, if your store is doing $100,000 in topline revenue, that is revenue before expenses, multiply that by anywhere from 1 to 5 based on factors like:
-how long is left in the lease
-is it in a safe neighborhood
-what is the age of the equipment
-potential competitors in the area
-potential development in the area that could help or hurt business
-if revenue over the past few years is going up or going down or staying the same
-how fast you want to sell
There is no magic formula that will give you an exact answer about what to multiply your top line revenue by.
It is largely your gut feel, tempered with a heavy dose of realism.
Of course we all think our stories are perfect and that they are worth automatically five times gross revenue, however we no longer see our store in the same way as a first time customer or as another owner would so you have to temper your instinct to say your store is worth top dollar.
Look at other Laundromats that have been for sale in the area and in similar conditions and see what they’ve gone with. Ask a trusted fellow owner, distributor, or even a customer to walk through your store and tell you how they see your store and where the strengths and weaknesses are. You also have to look at your market and what type and how many buyers are out there or are you looking to attract.

So let’s pretend your topline revenue is $100,000 and your equipment is 10 years old or less and you’ve had good revenues but they haven’t really increased, and the neighborhood is OK but has a few developing problems  either with lack of development or crime. A good number to start is maybe 3×100,000. So another words you’re selling your store for $300,000. If you own the property you have to decide if you are going to include the property with that price or add the value of the property on top of that. Let’s pretend the property that you have your laundromat on is worth $100,000.
Now your price should be $400,000 for the business and the property. Don’t forget this is just a general guideline because there are lots of other things that you have to take into consideration before selling your business and coming up with a price. If you still have a mortgage, that will take some money out of your final price. If you have other loans tied to the property or the business, you will have to pay those off before any profit is realized. It’s always easier to go down in price and it is to go up in price so start a bit higher in my opinion. I'll explain more about this later.

Another way to sell your laundromat is to do a similar formula to the above, but instead of topline revenue you look at your net profit. You multiply that net profit by a factor of 1 to 10 and then sell at that price. It is still the same factors as above, but now you’re using what you have made at the end of the year as an example, and can honestly tell your buyer what you made  in profit. Topline revenue is $100,000. Your net profit for the year is $30,000 after expenses. With all of the same factors as the first example, maybe you multiply that 30,000 by 7. Now your sale price is $210,000. If you have been in business more than a couple of years either start with looking at your best year or I recommend combining the last 10 years and dividing to get the average profit, then multiplying that number. Either way you have to have proof of your numbers.

A third way of selling a Laundromat is to take the used equipment value, for that you can work with your distributor to get an estimate as to what your equipment is worth on the used market or look it up yourself online at auction sites and equipment sellers. Add 30% of your top line revenue to that number. Let’s again pretend your equipment is worth $100,000 and you take a third of your topline revenue which is $100,000, so now you’re selling your store for $133,000. This particular method of selling your store can work well if you don’t have any debt, your equipment is a little bit older, and you need to sell fast. This method might tend to attract more first time buyers, but it also has the ability to attract more cash buyers because the numbers are lover.  In addition to other owners and people that might buy your store at a lower price and revamp the equipment, it also brings in those people that are just getting into the business and have limited cash funds.

So if using the first formula gives you a price of $300,000 and the second formula gives you a price of $210,000, and the third gives you a price of $133,000, why wouldn’t you just use the first formula all the time and get the higher price? The answer is you can, however there are different buyers out in the field that by looking at numbers a different way. people that are just getting into the business in my opinion will look at more of the top line revenue. People that already have owned stores will look more at the net profit. The net profit has the advantage of you being able to say to a potential buyer here’s what I actually made at the end of the year, and my taxes are at proof of it. Another way is to run the numbers all three ways and get the average.

Some people say it is easier to sell a Laundromat where the owner also has the property. Some buyers will be turned away on a store that is strictly in a lease space because they want that property. At the same I’ve had plenty of people that do not want to be a landlord, and are much happier paying someone else to handle the exterior items like a parking lot or roof repair so they can concentrate on the inside of their store. Some owners want completely out and others want the rent income. You have to decide if you can stand to have someone else run YOUR store, even though they bought it, without you second guessing them. If you can maybe be the landlord. If you can't, sell the whole thing.

To read part 2 click here:
selling-your-laundromat-how-to-get started part 2

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

East Side Maytag Closing

Eastside was my wife's favorite. I hope someone can reopen it. 
Clean, well lit, friendly employees, safe, machines worked, and they had a pinball game.
What are the four rules of owning a successful laundromat?
1. Clean
2. Bright/well lit
3. Safe
4. Machines work

Eastside from lowed these rules and was successful for many years. Don't take my word for it. Listen to these customers in the news story about this laundromat closing down: 

Milwaukee-long-standing-east-side-laundromat-to-close

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy who many years ago managed the above
Heck of A Nice Laundry mentioned in the story

Everet's Farm Laundry Newsletter February 2023

 

For Farms: Towel Washer or Dryer Not Working?

Buying Washers Over and Over? Is the washer and dryer that you bought to clean the towels not working? Are you constantly buying new washers only to have to buy a new one 12 months later? Bacteria counts too high? Dryer leaving towels damp promoting bacteria growth? Whether you use terry, microfiber, or cotton cloth you have to do laundry at some point. Homestyle top load or frontload washers are not built to last and run 20 loads a day. Commercial large chassis washers and dryers are built to take the workload and will last years.   Towel costs have gone up. Washing services raised their rates to triple what you used to pay. If you are interested in the option of having your own laundry equipment or upgrading what you currently have, please contact me. Everet Kamikawa A Heck of A Nice Guy   I write a weekly article related to laundry equipment. Once per month I send out an email with links to some of these articles. If you are interested in reading them just click on the link Featured Articles this Month Dryers not heating? Check Sail Switch dryers-not-heating-clean-sail-switch   Keep your laundry area safe. At a farm this is easier than an apartment building. Is the area well lit? Dry? Here are some more ideas: laundry-room-rule-3-keep-it-safe   Dryers not heating? Clean sensors dryers-not-heating-clean-sensors

Secret Sauce to Laundromat Success with Laundromat Author Jason Dodge

 

Jason Dodge is a successful laundromat owner, author of laundromat books, and a fantastic promoter.

Many of you that are reading this locally know Jason.

Here is a quick video of two tips he has on how to increase business at your laundromat.

For those of my readers in the sales or HR market, these same tips apply to your worlds as well.

Thanks Jason!
Ev

Clean Your Washer Doors

Have you noticed that musty smell coming from your front load washer?
Large chassis washers are not usually as prone to that smell as small chassis washers are, providing they are kept clean. If you notice that musty smell the first place I look is around the front door seal.

The door seal is always trapping some water and soap because the door is on its side holding all the water inside the washer.

The bottom of the door collects a lot of dirt and soap because the water is always splashing up against it and sitting there during the cycles.

Cleaning the door seal gets all the junk from around the door that smells and is an eye sore. Think about when customers load clothes. When they stand up to close the door the eyes naturally follow to the top of the door. If they see that there is no dirt there, they will have confidence that your washers are kept clean and therefore their clothes will get clean.

Use some soap and water, vinegar, or any favorite cleaner. Get a good plastic scraper and scrape all the big slime away. Then wet a cloth and wrap it around the edge of the scraper and run it all along the edges. Sometimes you can even get it underneath the lip of the door seal. 

If the door seal has a split top, get the cloth and scraper inside that area too.

Scraping the inside of the door seal might yield items like dimes stuck inside between the door glass and the seal, or junk inside the split top of a door seal that might not allow the door to close properly like in the picture above.

After cleaning the doors the musty smell should go away. You might find that the doors don't leak as much either because there is no dirt or debris blocking the door from closing properly, especially on the bottom of the door. When I clean the doors I also find it is a good time to rotate the door glass as that rotates the door seal and puts the wear spot in a different place and helps stop leaks too.

Now that you've cleaned your doors see if your customers notice the little extra sparkle. Even if they don't say anything or notice, I bet new customers will!

Ev

A Heck of A Nice Guy

Top 3 Disgusting Laundromat Stories

I’ve seen a lot of goofy things in my time running laundromats.
My guess is that you have too.
While it probably isn’t completely wise to back up old stereotypes of laundromat customers with these goofy tales, they are things that future laundromat owners need to know they might encounter, because I bet a six pack of ice cream cones that all these people out there that give advice on how to buy, set up, and run a laundromat don’t ever mention these goofy things. For the sake of anonymity for the locations I’m not going to name where these incidents took place, however they are all situations I saw first hand. So with that build up here is my list of the three most disgusting things I have seen in laundromats:

Honorable Mention:
High school age kids had vandalized the laundromat of this location.
They rolled their blunts in the bathroom and broke the toilet.
The bathroom was closed for repairs. I came into the laundromat to do some repairs and collections. I noticed the laundromat smelled like poo.
I looked around the washers and in the drain troughs and those seemed fine. I looked in the garbage can in the corner and there it was. Right on top of an empty box of laundry detergent, a bunch of poo logs. It was mushy slimy poo too, not the logs. Stunk up the whole place.
I was able to get the video feed from the owner.
An older lady stood up from the bench and said, and I heard her say it on camera; she had "to go #2 and go immediately and couldn’t make it to her car to go somewhere else to use the bathroom.” She grabbed a garbage can that had no cover on it, dragged it to a spot between two rows of washers that weren’t being used and anyone looking in the window couldn’t see behind, dropped trousers and dumped right into the can on top of the garbage!
I give her credit that she did that rather than poo on the floor or something worse.
Guess who had to change the garbage bag?




3. This takes place at the same laundromat as the honorable mention story.
As I stated above the bathroom had been closed due to vandalism. Before it was closed I caught several punks that were doing it. One was arrested. I thought the problem was over as for a few weeks nothing happened in the bathroom. One day I had to repair a washer at that laundromat. I used the bathroom and it was clean. I crawled into the drain trough to do my repairs. I was the only one in the laundromat when I heard the front door open and someone walk in and go to the bathroom and close the door. Various people like the mail carrier and bus drivers always used the bathroom at this time of the morning so I was curious because of the previous bathroom trouble but not too concerned. The bathroom door opened and I stuck my head out of the bulkhead to see who it was. It was the kid who was arrested. He looked at me laughing and held up his hands. They were wet and full of brown gunk. He walked out of the store, slapping one hand against a fiberglass sitting bench as he did so. I got out of the bulkhead and saw the brown splash from his hand on the bench. I immediately went to the bathroom. The little punk had wiped his own poo all over the bathroom walls and didn’t wash his hands afterwards. The toilet was full of diarrhea and no toilet paper or paper towels.
Poo all over the inside of the door, walls, and all around and on the toilet. Guess who had to clean that up and how many pairs of rubber gloves were needed?






2. Some regular customers to a store had told me there was a pervert coming to this location on some particular mornings. He was dropping trou and pleasuring himself in front of and while looking at them. I told them to call the cops next time they saw him. I changed my visiting time to this store to match the times that the ladies were there in the hopes that I could call the cops and keep the ladies safe. For several weeks nothing happened. I figured I would go one more time on the new day.
The ladies were there…and so were the cops!
The ladies had called and the cops got there on time and arrested the perv. Literally caught him with his pants down! The ladies were laughing at him (they were okay and even enjoying the fact they were the ones that caught him).
Turns out the perv was a known sex offender. The police were taking statements and collecting finger prints, which I thought was weird. I asked the cop if they were collecting finger prints because he touch something the ladies had. He said yes that the perv touched the bench the ladies sat on and they needed to establish that it was him at the laundromat at the time of this incident. The perv had “left evidence” in spots and I asked the officer in charge why if they needed evidence they weren’t taking obvious bio samples that clearly showed evidence of the crime and obviously belonged to him because there was no doubt it was his DNA.
The officer said “I don’t mess with that.” Guess who had to clean it up with a mop and a lot of bleach?



1. As bad as both of the previous examples are,
I still think this is my most disgusting.
I had to fix a toilet seat in a bathroom. Before doing that I always bleach the toilet and floor around so I can at least pretend I have a more sanitary place to work.
Next to the toilet was a bathroom sink in a vanity. The vanity had a large cabinet with a door and three small drawers next to the big door.
The drawers and door were all screwed shut by me years before because I would go in and find old blunts, dirty toilet paper, and other junk inside of them.
Since I had screwed them shut I never gave them a second thought. On this day since my head was next to the vanity and I was in the bathroom for longer than a few seconds I noticed a consistent strange odor that you didn’t really notice when standing up at the sink.
I put my nose next to the large door of the vanity, and after taking a deep inhale I was sure it was coming from there.
I thinking a mouse must have died inside the cabinet or some other such thing.
I got my drill and took out the screws and opened the door…and nearly puked.
I got an old broom from the cleaning closet and reached inside the vanity and swept out... 56 used tampons and soiled panty liners!

Most of the tampons had congealed into a massive sticky mound that was stuck to the floor of the vanity. Some of the color on the items were bright as if they were new while others had darker colors indicating they were older. I had to knock the pile loose with the broom and it took three trips to the garbage cans outside in the laundromat with the dust pan to get them all cleaned up. You don’t have to guess who cleaned these up.
To this day I don’t know how they got in there. The screws on the cabinet didn’t look like they were messed with. When I pulled them out with the drill they were still tight inside the wood.
I can’t imagine several different ladies, or even the same lady, using the vanity as a disposal for a time long enough that so many items were left in the vanity. If someone collected them and left them all at once that is hard to imagine too.
After that incident every few months I would open up the cabinet but there was never anything in there after that.




In the laundry business you run into all kinds of good people…and goofy ones.
Can you top these disgusting stories?

Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

American Flag Retirement Ceremony

 On this 4th of July below is a brief video of an American Flag retirement ceremony. The whole service took an hour with all of the flags retired, however in the six minute video you get an idea of how it works. It was filmed at Menomonee Falls WWII Days in June 2023 and compiled together using video clips and iPhone live images.
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

Good evening everyone.
My name is Everet Kamikawa.
I’m a committee member for Troop 260 based out of
St. Margaret Mary Church on 92nd and Capitol Drive.
Thank you very much for coming to our flag retirement ceremony this evening.
How many of you are seeing a flag retirement ceremony for the first time?
(people raise hands)
How many of you have never seen a flag retirement ceremony before? 

(same people raise hands)
I got a few of you raising your hands twice.

Before we begin I just want to say a quick thank you to Nancy and the organizers of WWII Days for giving us the opportunity to hold this ceremony today.
We also want to thank the leaders of Troop 260 including:
Dan Forgie
Ralph Frederick

Jeff Roemer

Toni Cranfield 

Gary Sisley

We also wanna say thank you very much to the Scouts from 260 and our special group of veterans who are participating in this event this evening as well as all of you.
Thank you all for coming.

I started off this evening with a little bit of a joke, however the ceremony you are about to see is not a joke.  

Nations and events in history are often represented by words and symbols. 

In fact the living history that we teach the crowds this weekend is about the triumph over one of those symbols and the evil words surrounding it. 

The American flag is more than just a symbol of our country.

It is the ideas and the people that are represents.
The freedoms that we enjoy.
The people that we are.

Think about all of the history that our flag has witnessed.
In our own hometown of Milwaukee, that flag will be leading the Juneteenth parade being carried by re-enactors representing Union troops of the 29th United States Colored Troops regiment from the Civil War.
It was being flown during father Groppi's march across the viaducts to protest city discriminatory housing laws.
It’s flying behind you over this event this weekend like it has flown over so many places and events over the years. 

Think  about all of the places that it has flown. 

Recently it has flown in places like: 

Shahi Kit Valley

Fallujah

Kandahar

For another generation it flew over places with names like:: 

Fort Amador 

Mogadishu 

Kuwait City 

St. George’s

For my family the flag flew over: 

Da Nang

Khe sahn

Sukchon-Sunchon

Nisan-ni

Bruyes 

PO Valley

It was carried by the grandfather of our reenactment unit captain from the time he hit the beach at Normandy on June 7 all the way through to Berlin in WWII. Then through Korea, Vietnam, and Panama, and now flies over our campsite here at this event.

The American flag has flown over places with famous names like: 

Bastogne

Iwo Jima

Anzio

Bella wood

Gettysburg 

Yorktown

And some not so famous names like:

Minidoka

Tule Lake

Hart Mountain

In all that time it has draped the coffins of every man and woman that has paid the ultimate sacrifice to defend this country and its people, including the 22 veterans a day that are currently becoming casualties of their wars,
only whose graves are located on the side of the ocean.

When you have a symbol that has seen so much and been sacrificed for by so many, you don’t get rid of it at the end of its life by simply throwing it away. 

In the ceremony that you were about to see, the flag is retired in a way befitting of it. 

It is a simple, dignified ceremony 

During the ceremony
you will hear the words of the flag as it speaks to you telling you what it sees. 

As you hear these powerful words I challenge you to three things: 

Number one:
I challenge you to not get welling of pride and patriotism for being part of this country. Maybe you get a lump in your throat or your heart bats a little louder.

Number two:

I challenge you to not develop a deeper appreciation of the sacrifices and duties that the veterans here at this event and everywhere have done to keep our country free.

Number three:
I challenge you to not get a tear in your eye thinking of a family member, loved one, or a friend that made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of this country

I will wager that everyone here tonight will fail on at least one of those challenges. I personally will fail on all three. And I am proud to admit so. 

After the main flag is fully retired, whomever in the audience that would like to dedicate a flag to be retired can do so. 

At this time to get the ceremony started, I’d like to turn things over to our Eagle scout candidate:  

Hiro Kamikawa 

Speech given by Everet Kamikawa before Hiro Kamikawa's Eagle Scout Project 

of American Flag retirement ceremony on June 18, 2023,
at WWII Days at Old Falls Village in Menomonee Falls, WI.