We compare business gas and electricity from 20 plus suppliers for workwear, uniform and PPE laundries. Typical bills run £8.4k to £254k a year and businesses that switch with us save 40 per cent on average, typically 30 to 50 per cent. The figures on this page are estimates from published UK benchmarks, not quotes.
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What a typical workwear or PPE laundry uses and pays across the UK, from published benchmarks.
Figures are estimates from published UK benchmarks priced at 25p/kWh electricity, 7p/kWh gas and about £365 a year in standing charges. They are not quotes. See how we estimate.
Laundries processing industrial workwear, uniforms, high-visibility clothing, flame-retardant garments, mats, mops and PPE, usually on rental or managed-service contracts. Heavy soiling, oil and grease and technical fabric requirements push wash temperatures and cycle times above domestic or hotel linen work, and tunnel washers with steam-fed presses and finishing tunnels make the boiler the largest single load on site.
Heavy soiling sets the temperature and the temperature sets the bill. Oil, grease and industrial dirt need hotter, longer cycles than any other laundry work.
Flame-retardant and high-visibility garments carry process requirements that limit how far you can cut wash temperature without failing the specification.
The steam boiler feeding washers, presses and the finishing tunnel is usually the single largest gas load on the site and it runs the whole shift.
Garment tracking, conveyors, compressed air and extraction keep an electrical baseload running long after the last wash has finished.
Typical equipment loads across launderettes, dry cleaners and laundries, with annual kWh and cost bands from published benchmarks.
| Equipment | kWh a year | Cost a year (est.) |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial washer-extractors (bank of 6-12) | 8,000–35,000 kWh | £2,000–£8,750 |
| Gas-heated tumble dryers | 25,000–120,000 kWh | £1,750–£8,400 |
| Electric tumble dryers | 12,000–55,000 kWh | £3,000–£13,750 |
| Steam boiler feeding presses and finishers | 20,000–90,000 kWh | £1,400–£6,300 |
| Dry cleaning machine and solvent chiller | 6,000–22,000 kWh | £1,500–£5,500 |
| Rotary ironer, hot water and extraction | 7,000–30,000 kWh | £1,750–£7,500 |
Audit compressed air for leaks. In a garment plant with pneumatic presses and conveyors, leaks are typically the quietest and largest single electrical waste.
Recover heat from the tunnel washer press water and from the dryer exhaust. Both are hot, continuous and already paid for.
Separate heavily soiled workwear from light uniform work into different programmes rather than running everything on the heavy cycle by default.
Check whether your finishing tunnel is running through breaks and changeovers. Idle steam through a finishing tunnel is a very expensive way to heat a factory.
Review your half-hourly capacity charge and renewal date together. On this consumption a small movement in unit rate outweighs most operational savings you can make in a year.
Illustrative example
Around 14 washers and 10 gas dryers, open seven days
Gas dryers and hot water are the product itself, so energy is often a quarter of turnover.
Illustrative example, not a real customer. Figures are estimates based on published UK benchmarks. See how we estimate. See all worked examples.
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