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laundromat owners ?

mjwalsh

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I hear only 2 names: Dexter & Speed Queen.
I wonder if you can buy good used laundry equipment, or is that a "No-No" in the laundry world?
Soonermagic,

Unless you go to the highest end soft mounts, hard mounts tend to have less maintenance. One of my local closeby competitors went to almost all Electrolux. Him & his wife went with a large number of machines in the 6 & 8 load size. If you have time to look at the discussions on the CLA Open Forum you will see it is wise to consider other than just Dexter & Speed Queen. Your local commercial laundry distributors & what they support can be a major factor went it comes to choices of brands & models within.

We have 2,4,& 6 load size of vintage quality Wascomat Gen4s (32 total) that we are modernizing so the customers can choose the number of fills corresponding with the amount they pay. That along with going to ... as close to 100% dollar coins being used as possible. Hopefully, we have been testing our final version ... including on the bulkhead with two machines being used by the public for well over a year now. At that point, we will probably see a lot more dollar coins in our 6 car wash bays & 4 vacuums. adjacent to our laundromat. The dog wash tends to be more $5 bills since that is the minimum required.

If I remember right ... Randy Nix has related ... some of the nicest people you can meet are laundromat owners!
 

tdlconceptsllc

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I have heard Wascomat is good too. I am like coach can you buy used laundry equipment like used laser 4000s and get them going and be reliable and make money? Any pro tips or advice I am listening or PM me would be awsome. I know the laundrymat industry is more secretive on info I am wanting to learn and have a opportunity but am clueless wish I had 1/4 of the info I had in the carwash industry would be so cool.Thanks to anyone in advance.
 
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Randy

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I have a bill changer customer in Haines Alaska. A number of years ago he bought all the equipment from a closed laundromat in Olympia Washington, the equipment was all Speed Queen. Packed everything into shipping containers and had it barged up to Haines Alaska. There was only one other laundromat in Haines and it was a dump. He and wife spent the winter rebuilding the equipment, making a good washers and dryers out of all of the extra machines they had, they had twice as many washers and dryers than they needed. By spring they had the laundromat ready to open for the tourist trade and it took off. He and his wife built a first class operation, it’s pretty nice. He uses a wood fired boiler to heat the hot water. He had a large surplus of hot water so he installed 5 pay showers, they are busy almost all day long. So to answer your question, yes it's possible to buy used equipment, set it up and make money.
 

tdlconceptsllc

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Thank you Randy I wish I just had a grain of knowledge about the industry.
 

MEP001

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Thank you Randy I wish I just had a grain of knowledge about the industry.
Seems like it's a lot the same as the car wash industry, keep the equipment reliable, keep the place clean, give customers what they want/need. The only part I wouldn't know going in cold is how to work on the washers. Sounds like the guy who bought the used ones had a crash course.
 

soonermajic

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I know an area that's STARVING for a laundry. Problem is, there's no gas for about 11 miles!!! I hear that you simply HAVE TO HAVE Gas!!??? Is there a good alternative to Natural Gas?
 

soonermajic

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The laundromat owners i talk to say propane costs are 70% higher than gas...?
But i had the same thought
 
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