How much water does an average guesthouse use for linen?

If you launder your own linen, do you know how much water you’re using per room per occupancy? Even with a commercial washing machine that prioritises low energy and water usage, you’re using a lot.

While working out your direct water usage from laundering linen will depend on how big your washing machine is and how often your guests’ linen is changed, it’s a little simpler to work out your water usage per room. Take about 3 months’ worth of your water bills and divide the average monthly amount by the total of occupied rooms you had over this time. You can compare figures from different times of the year to give you an idea of seasonal fluctuations, and then try to actively reduce your water usage across the guesthouse.

Naturally, one of the ways to do this is to outsource linen laundering, or better yet to rent your linen from a linen rental company that doesn’t need to use much water to clean its linen. Because after all, even if you’re not using the water directly to clean your linen, it still affects your property’s carbon footprint – while you might not see the water being used, it’s still happening.

fanute is the South African distributor for Hydrofinity near-waterless laundry systems, which reduces water consumption by up to 80% while producing a superior clean that’s gentle on linen. Just a single 36kg machine running 14 cycles a day can save up to 2 million litres of water each year.

When it comes to laundry rental, fanute practices what it preaches – all of fanute’s linen has been cleaned with the Hydrofinity system, which not only uses less water but also requires up to 80% less energy and over 50% less chemicals than your traditional laundry. Regular customers will receive a monthly statement which details how much water, energy and detergents they’ve saved by using fanute – and an annual certificate that shows how much good they’ve done for the planet.