Cohousing-L Mailing List: laundry machines and remote sensing

[Susan Coberly (susandgeorge]

I echo Sharon Villine's response to the LaundryView website. wow.

We are a community of 28 homes, of which 24 are occupied; 3 are empty; 1
is  soon-to-be-occupied by the owner. All homes have washer and dryer
hookups; [stackable]. In the common house, we have 3 washers and 3 dryers,
sourced from a leasing provider. 2 sets are stacked. 1 is not. we have room
for 4 sets stacked.

Of the 26 current households, 2 have washers in their homes but no dryer;
and 4 have washers and dryers in their homes. Our community is made up of
large and small families with children, most of whose adults work outside
the home as well as at home, and families of working-outside the
home adults and of retired adults. [each of which type is largely without
children though some have resident or visiting children and / or
grandchildren].

Our laundry room is very busy, although sometimes it is completely empty.
3/3 seems to be the bare minimum for our community. Even though sometimes
someone can/ does combine dryer loads, since we have several households
that have a washer only, and since sometimes a washer or a dryer is "down"
for maintenance, I would advocate for an equal number of each.

With such a small set of machines I am not sure the remote sensing would be
helpful but I will mention it to the Common Facilities team.

As a general rule the households in our community have more than 1 load to
wash and dry at a time, in order to get it done all of a piece.  this is
especially true of the homes with children, and we have 2 homes with 4
children each, which homes have adults who work outside the home - as well
as in the home!

We do try to promote the "push your neighbor's waiting laundry forward"
cohousing ideal. That works sometimes.

Susan C at La Querencia/ Fresno Cohousing