Welcome to Hotel Insider’s inaugural Back of the Haus feature, where we peer into a world that exists parallel to that of the guests, one which they rarely, if ever, encounter. In this edition, we take a tour of Mercure Kooddoo’s laundry. Though small, it’s a state of the art facility as you will see, handling on average 400 to 500 kg of laundry a day. This article first appeared in our print Issue No. 2.
The facility not only does the laundry of guests but that of team members. It’s unique in that it also caters to safari vessels in the atoll and Island Aviation.
There are six full-time laundry staff here plus a tailor. First, everything is sorted, the whites are separated, and the laundry is weighed.
Then, if necessary, the laundry is taken to a stain removal area where tough stains are dealt with using Stain Blaster.
Then the washing is dried in these Power Line™ machines. The dried items are taken to the electric pressers.
Here you see an array of Ecolab chemical dispensing units, which are programmed to deliver washing agents to the machines perfect to the millilitre.
Now, it’s time for the laundry to be washed. There are two types of machines here, two that handle loads up to 59 kg and two up to 27 kg. The touch panels on the Power Line™ washing machines have different programmes for washing everything from delicates to bed sheets and quilts. The corresponding program is set on the Ecolab chemical dispenser fixed to the front of the machines. Then you just sit back, relax and let the machines do the work.
The gas operated bed linen presser needs to be heated to 180 degrees before pressing can happen.
The smaller electric garment pressers do their magic quickly.
Once pressed the guests’ laundry is folded and put into baskets like these and covered with a piece of satin cloth.