Wash with Wally: Cleaning Yoga Blankets

By Wally Makowsky | May 03, 2012

I have been approached by a potential commercial client about cleaning yoga blankets. If you’re not familiar with them, they are heavy wool blankets about the size of a twin bed sheet. This client doesn’t want to dryclean the blankets because of the chemicals involved. What is the best way to wash them? And how would I dry these items – in a cool dryer or hang dry?

If you’re going to accept this commercial account, you will need to wash the blankets in cold water. I would recommend using a product called Woolite, which is specifically made for wool-type, cold-water washing.

When it comes to drying the blankets, be careful. Wool has a tendency to shrink, even in cold water. Therefore, it’s important to dry the yoga blankets in a dryer that’s set to blow just cold air. And, above all, do not hang dry these items. The blankets likely will take a considerable amount of time to dry, and it will depend on how thick they are – but that’s the only way I would consider drying them.

I’m looking into purchasing an existing laundry. My problem is trying to figure out how much drop-off laundry is currently being done at the store. I have the seller’s figure, but how can I verify those figures?

You can check the seller’s drop-off invoices for a month or two, and it will give you an approximate number; however, the only foolproof way to verify the actual amount of drop-off laundry being done is to check the drop-off business on a daily basis for at least 30 days.

With laundromats, drop-off volume is the most common way to fudge the numbers, and it’s difficult to disprove the figures unless you sit there on a daily basis, checking exactly what comes in and what goes out. After all, it’s very easy to fill out a bunch of invoices and throw a little extra cash into a bank deposit. So, be careful.

I was interested in buying another laundry, but after checking the financial statement and the utilities, I noticed a considerable drop in volume over the last three years. The store looks to be clean and in good working order. And there aren’t any new stores in the area. What’s the problem? Can I increase the business?

If the store is in good mechanical order and kept clean, the problem is likely a drastic change in the local population and demographics. Perhaps a large portion of the store’s customer base has moved out of the neighborhood. In recent years, this has been especially common in strongly Hispanic areas, where the job markets have dried up.

Another possibility is that the neighborhood going through a gentrification process, and converting from a low-income area to a high-income neighborhood. In such neighborhoods, the people moving in will remodel and most likely install their own washers and dryers.

Look more closely at the demographics for this store. You certainly don’t want to be in a market where laundromat customers are moving out.

I recently had a customer ask me what constitutes a “load” of clothes. He was looking at a chart I created, showing the load capacity of each size of washing machine in my store. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good answer for this customer. How many pounds of clothes would be considered one load?

The load theory started back in the 1950s and ’60s. At that time, eight pounds of clothes was considered a load of laundry. Since then, what’s thought to be a load has increased to 10 pounds and then to 12 pounds. Today, there is no set rule – anywhere between eight pounds and 12 pounds is considered one load.