My best friend, who is usually impressively well informed, told me recently that laundromats do not use fresh water for each wash, but instead use the same water all day.
I am torn between thinking, oh my god this can’t be true, and remembering that she is very seldom wrong.
Does anybody have the certain straight dope on this?
How? Every laundromat I’ve seen has had the machines hooked up to city water just like at home. Besides, how could they clean the water between uses? I’ve seen zero equipment for such, and it would be very expensive in any case.
Where would they store this water?
As has been said, how in the world do you imagine this happening without costing way more even if they reused dirty water?
Wouldn’t the water become super-saturated with detergent?
I can’t speak for all of them, but my parents used to own one and my aunt still owns one. Neither re-used water.
You’d be paying a lot to re-jigger the machines to even do this (where would you store the water?) for water that doesn’t cost a whole lot.
My best guess? Your friend tried to wash clothes without detergent and saw suds and assumed the water was old? A lot of people use way too much detergent, and it doesn’t wash out of clothes entirely. It leads to premature fading. If you’re the type that doesn’t measure the proper amount of detergent but just tosses some in, you can try running the wash without adding soap. If you see suds, you use too much.
I’ve never heard of laundromats re-using water. However, I have heard that car washes re-use water.
That’s what I was going to say. Car washes do. I can’t imagine it would even be sanitary for a laundromat to do it.
Oh, thank god! I have been tripping over this for quite awhile now, because as I said, she is generally correct. She had said something to the effect of “They’re not allowed to use that much water.” (we live in California)
Which was, you know, closer to plausible than otherwise.
I am immeasurably relieved. heh, off to do my laundry now.
Front-loaders use a lot less water than top-loaders, which also means the laundromat has to make has to heat less water. I wonder if water heating beats out electricity for a laundromat’s utility costs (gas vs. electric dryers being the wild card there). Of course, if you use the same amount of detergent in a front-loader as in a top-loader then it’s way too much and could over-suds (is that a term?) the machine. Ever put Dawn in the dishwasher? Could be something like that. 
my mother did laundry with a wringer washer, and she used to re-use the rinse water for several loads. She put the drain hose into the cement laundry tub and stored the used rinse water there; then for the next load, she used that same water for the rinse.
But I can’t see a commercial laundry doing that – where would they store all the rinse water between loads. Also, you had to be careful of the order that you washed loads – dirty overalls were the last load. How would you do that in a commercial laundry?
They made ‘regular’ washing machines that did that automatically, at least up until the 70’s. They were called Sud Savers. IIRC, when the first soapy load of water is drained, it drains into a stopped sink. The rest of the water goes down the other side of a split sink or a standpipe/overflow that you used as the stopper. For the next load you tell the washer to draw that still soapy water back up.
The house my parents moved in to has a Sud Saver Sink that’s meant to be used along with one of these washers, though I don’t know how. It looks exactly like this. It stands out (which is why I asked my dad what it was) because of the extra spigot thing in the sink and there’s cover that goes over the top of it
You know, just to make sure, you could fill the pockets of your jeans with methylene blue, and then watch the other machines… 
FWIW, looking around online, it appears that recycling and reusing water at laundromats is a thing, but it doesn’t look like a lot of people are doing it. Big upfront fees, extra maintenance, not a lot of payback, it’s just sort a ‘green’ thing. On top of that, I stumbled onto a forum for laundromat owners and it seems like they don’t do it because customers don’t like the idea of using other people’s dirty water (even if it’s been filtered and treated).
My guess is that you could probably just call the owner and ask them. They might even advertise it if they do it.
High volume commercial laundries that do institutional linens for hospitals and similar do sometimes recycle water esp in areas where water costs are high.
http://awpi.biz/laundry_water_recycling/
It is (relatively) rare for a coin op laundry to recycle water unless it’s a huge operation. Small scale recycling does not generally make economic sense.
Commercial dishwashers, re-use the final hot rinse water as a pre-wash for the next load. This is as much to save on the cost of heating it as to save the water.
In the current situation, where water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource for many people; I am sure that a combination of cost and legislation will force innovation.
I recall one time laundramats being excluded for water restrictions because they were a necessary public service. They probably use no more water than if everyone were washing their clothes at home in their own machines, possibly less because those big front loaders are very efficient.
I’ve never heard of that, but my store doesn’t use one so I’m not familiar with the intricacies of them. However, it should be noted that US Food Code requires that final rise to be between 165 (or 180 depending on the machine) and 194 degrees as well as having bleach, ammonia or iodine in it.
Granted, not everyone is totally on top of everything, but it’s not that your fork is still covered in the last guy’s meatloaf.
If you’re worried about that kind of thing, next time you’re at a bar, watch how the bartender cleans the glasses.
A machine like this, submersed in a sink of soapy water. They dump out the ice and straw in one sink, run the glass over the middle brush, dunk it in ‘clean’ water in the next sink and toss it on a drying rack. Done.
When I had the Sears repair guy in for my front loader (for an unrelated issue) he mentioned that people use far too much soap in front loaders. he said that even the detergent makers recommend far too much. Use half what the smallest recommended amount is. Also, don’t overload the machine, and leave the door open when not using it, to dry out.
His point was the detergent in excess quantities foams up past the center bearing, causing that to tend to rust too soon. Also, not drying the drum (door open) means the bearing stays wet much much longer. It also starts to smell like swamp water.
I’m not clear what you’re saying here… Why drain anything at all? Leave the soapy water in the washing machine, and leave the rinse water in the laundry sink. That’s the way it works with my mom’s wringer.
