As hoteliers everywhere face up to steeply rising energy bills, the Norbreck Castle Hotel, one of Blackpool’s largest and most prestigious hotels, has been able to cut laundry costs by 14% in a year and save 21% on the cost of drying by installing new laundry equipment from Girbau UK.
With its old laundry needing replacement, management at the Norbreck Castle Hotel wanted any new equipment to help reduce the hotels’ carbon footprint and save money against the background of spiralling energy costs. The hotel’s laundry is a large operation in use from 7am in morning until 8pm at night, seven days week, 352 days a year. It processes laundry for the 480 room hotel and two sister-hotels in Blackpool with a further 350 beds between them. The market leading energy efficiency of Girbau’s washers, dryers and ironers made it the obvious choice and the hotel installed five of its new washing machines, three tumble dryers and two dryer ironers.
Girbau’s high speed washing machines contain an extensive range of in-built programmes which save water and enable washing on lower temperature cycles. Fabrics can be cleaned with low temperature detergents and without excessive water consumption. They can also be filled with hot as well as cold water, a feature which the hotel has taken full advantage of by installing a dedicated hot water boiler in the laundry. Filling with hot water is more energy efficient than heating cold water to the required temperature inside the machine and helps to further shorten washing cycles. Laundry staff have also commented on the performance of the washing machines’ high speed spin cycles which leaves thin cotton fabrics virtually dry when they are removed. As a result these can placed straight into an ironer without any need for energy-hungry tumble drying.
The Girbau dryers also provide much improved performance and astonishing energy savings compared to the hotel’s old equipment. The larger drum size of Girbau’s tumble dryers allows bigger loads to be processed in one go and they dry much more effectively than before. Most important of all though, the hotel has saved 21% on the cost of drying its laundry.
Commenting on cleaning performance and cost savings that the hotel’s laundry department has achieved since the installation of Girbau’s products Tony Banks, general manager, Norbreck Castle Hotel said: “While maintaining quality and high levels of customer service are critical in the hotel business, controlling costs is equally important. Since using Girbau’s products not only is the quality of our laundry much better, but thanks to the machines’ energy efficiency we have been able to offset the rise in energy prices and cut our laundry bills by 14% over the past year.”
About Norbreck Castle Hotel
Set in its prestigious seafront location, the Norbreck Castle is one of Blackpool’s leading hotels. Part of the successful Brittania Hotels Group, Norbreck Castle services 480 bedrooms and has some of the best entertainment, conference, meeting and banqueting facilities in the North West.
http://www.britanniahotels.com