Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: clothes washers

[Jay KapLon (jay]

> On Aug 25, 2022, at 2:49 PM, Maraiah (Lynn) Nadeau <welcome [at] olympus.net> 
> wrote:
> 
> If your membership is reliant on shared laundry facilities, how many 
> machines do you have, for how many people?
> Is that enough?

We have 55 households and about 100 people. We have 3 large-size washers and 
electric 3 dryers.

It seems that about half the units have their own washer and dryer.

We do not charge on the thinking that the main costs of laundry are heating 
water and the water itself, which are being heated and used whether used in the 
communal machines or private machines. (This is somewhat flawed since it 
doesn’t account for electricity or leasing costs, but it also saves 25 pairs of 
machines from being created and the climate impact cost of that.)

The 3 pairs is basically enough. We have the usual issues with people 
frequently leaving laundry in the washer or dryer and use 3 “move it along” 
baskets to remove completed loads from either washer or dryer.

We did see some great laminated cards at a Boulder cohousing that said how to 
dry a given load of clothing that one would leave on the washer. That way any 
neighbor could move your load to the dryer and start it for you correctly. It 
was great. Our community failed to emulate it sadly and backed up laundry is 
still an issue.

We have a group of 2 people who manage the laundry, but pay a janitor to clean 
the room along with the rest of the common areas.

-Jay