"Communal laundries are one of Sweden’s environmental success stories. They began as part of the post-war million homes project, when modern apartment blocks were equipped with shared tvättstugor (laundry rooms) instead of individual residents having to buy their own machines"

#Environment #Sweden #EnergyCrisis

How Sweden’s communal laundries shield renters from rising energy bills
https://theconversation.com/how-swedens-communal-laundries-shield-renters-from-rising-energy-bills-279415

How Sweden’s communal laundries shield renters from rising energy bills

Communal laundries are easy to find in Swedish apartment buildings and can provide a cheap way to do the washing.

The Conversation
@junesim63 There seems to be a non-sequitur here: I'm struggling to understand how having fewer laundry machines shields the tenants from increased energy costs unless they have already paid for their use of the facilities.

@OneInterestingFact @junesim63

1) power is paid by the building owners, so apartment owners don't face immediate price jumps. (Need to wait until the rents go up; ours is negotiated yearly.)

2) The article points out how booked laundry means people do fewer, larger loads, less frequently, so laundry power use is already lower.

3) In our tvättstuga we mostly use the drying room, which uses less power than the dryer.

4) (conjecture) buildings might get lower power rates than apartments?

@dalke
you can add that industrial washing machines are quite a bit better than consumer ones.
@OneInterestingFact @junesim63

@iinavpov @OneInterestingFact @junesim63

The article does mention the advantages of semi-industrial machines, but doesn't bring up energy savings.

As for me, our Electolux is a workhorse.

Though the circulating fan in the drying room broke last January. Its apparently hard to get a replacement for 30-40 year old hardware.