Laundry Solutions for Later Living
Auriens Chelsea is a beautifully designed set of luxury apartments off the Kings Road in Chelsea bringing together stylish living, privacy, world class service and care for its residents as and when they want it. The laundry requirements were unique as they had to meet the needs of hospitality, care and valet using a small, allocated space two floor levels below the ground!
Requirement
Auriens is a unique project and when The OPL Group were invited to their first on-site management meeting, it was clear that they needed input from industry leading experts to help fulfil the three main requirements without having any specific numbers to help quantify the recommendations.
The first issue was that the laundry room was small and that it was to be a number of levels below the ground floor and therefore there was going to be little to no air flow in or out the room space. The next issue was that the equipment had to meet the needs of processing laundry for staff uniforms and resident dry clean garments together with processing hospitality department garments and potentially foul and infected laundry items.
This project was challenging, and this was mixed with a short time line to allow us to consult, make recommendations, plan for delivery and installation and then arrange training.
Solution
It was clear that we needed to be creative with our proposal and laundry room plan, especially when the client decided to allocate some of the laundry space for offices. The next thing we had to think about was drying as it was clear that standard vented dryers with ducting was out of the question. We were also tasked with ensuring that the laundry solution met with their sustainability plans and minimising the impact on their Carbon Footprint.
The solutions that we recommended was to install the Electrolux Lagoon 20kg Wet Cleaning System which would allow the staff to process staff uniforms and customer valet garments that would usually be outsourced to Dry-Cleaners. This means that not only did they have full cost control over these garments they would also be saving money compared to out sourcing. The Lagoon system was also a green alternative to solvent based cleaning offering a more efficient and eco friendly laundry solution.
We also recommended a separate Electrolux 14kg washing machine and tumble dryer, together with a commercial ironing table and flatwork ironer to process all of the hospitality and care linen/garments. With the new Electrolux Clarus Control, we were able to make bespoke wash and chemical programs for the laundry staff to streamline the wash process.
Meeting Sustainability Brief
One of the main issues with the space was that we were not allowed to install vented tumble dryers. This gave us an opportunity to install the new Electrolux Line 6000 Heat Pump tumble dryers. As well as not having a requirement for ducting minimising installation costs, the Heat Pump versions of the dryers would also save up to 62.5% on energy compared to vented dryers. These new breed of dryers work efficiently in ambient temperatures between +10 degrees up to +45 degrees Celsius which is perfect for basement rooms. Our design carried out calculations for the air flow requirements to ensure that the room had sufficient mechanical ventilation.
Installation
Working alongside the client’s architects, our design team designed all aspects of the laundry room including services infrastructure that was required for the equipment. We planned the layout of the room, delivered full M&E design and services drawings for the client, and procured the equipment and consumables required for the project.
Following the installation, the Electrolux Lagoon international Training Manager, joined staff for the day to carry out training on the Lagoon equipment to ensure the staff were confident to use their new laundry set up.
