Newbie, looking for advice on checking out a wash

[ChuckB]

I'm new to the business but have been looking at a new wash that was built about 6 months ago near my home.

The owner lives a long ways away from the wash, 50 plus miles, and has put it on the market. I understand about checking out the figures and cross-checking with the water, gas and electric bills but what I would like additional help with is how to check out the wash.

All of the equipment is new, mostly Dexter with some Whirlpool top loaders. What should I look for to determine if the people that built the wash did a good job, verses a pretty place with a great deal of design flaws!

Should the gas line be a loop?
Where should the washer lint trap be? What type of lint filters should I find?
What type of hot water generation equipment should I find?

What do you suggest I look for?

Thanks in advance.

[Howard]

Hire a consultant for a one-time evaluation. It will be money well spent.

[srhaz]

Absolutely, hire a consultant or if anything a highly trained repair person who has been in the biz a long time. They typically can spot design flaws.
New construction can tend to go with cheap standards just to get the mat built and then resell.
Common problems I see - main gas line to the dryers not large enough diameter, so if all dryers are going the farthest one will be starved of gas and customers complain "no heat". If so, a recirc loop could be put in.
Also avoid 90deg elbows in your dryer vents that go into the main "header" they should always be 45deg, with main header getting larger towards the exit point. And adequate make-up air, if all dryers are going, are they sucking enough air FROM THE PROPER SOURCE. I've seen them so starved they were sucking in air thru the coin slot.

[ChuckB]

Thanks for the excellent suggestions. I will use the my "old boy" network to see if I can find a local repair/maintenance person.

Are there industry consultants listed anywhere that I could also look into?

While I'm at it there are a couple of other items I'm looking for. In the carwash industry there are monitoring systems for stations. The monitoring systems, either by counting coin clicks or power fluctuations, will tell you exactly how many coins have been deposited at any station, time of wash, services used, etc. Now I realize this can be done with a "card" system but I'm not up for that yet. Does the Laundromat business have something comparable?

The second is a video system. I have looked at Laundryspy, what do people think of it?

[Lar Hylobates]

there are coin counting devices that can be installed on a specific machine, but really only good for keeping your employees honest if indeed they were to have a key.