Our experience has shown that there is almost no synergy between the work we do for the kitchen and laundry. Therefore, we need to view the laundry and housekeeping almost as a separate project. The laundry drawings, specifications, and bid package are typically completed by different staff than those working on the kitchen. Assembling and issuing the bid package, responding to RFIs, checking shop drawings, etc. requires about the same number of hours for a laundry with 30 items of equipment as a kitchen with 100 pieces of equipment.

Most MEP engineers and GC's have worked on kitchens, but experience with laundries is much more rare, so we spend a lot of time providing information and verifying that the A/E documents are properly coordinated with our design. Laundries generate more RFI's and have more field issues during construction, and require much more hand holding than kitchens.

Due to the size, service clearances, and infrastructure requirements, laundry and uniform issue equipment is a lot less forgiving of any errors in installation or configuration than kitchen equipment. Therefore issues like rigging and service clearances, lint control, proper air balancing, troughs and trough lint filters, and related infrastructure are time consuming to review and coordinate, etc.

Evaluating bids for equipment also requires a lot more time than kitchen equipment. While a single kitchen equipment brand and model can be bid by three or more kitchen equipment dealers, each brand of laundry equipment has its own distributor (who also provides service). Each manufacturer has slightly different features, capacities, and equipment footprints, so in order to assure that you receive the best value and lowest price, the bid analysis is more time consuming than for kitchen equipment.

Our fee includes the equipment sizing, layout, MEP rough-ins, specifications, bid issue and bid review and evaluation, respond to RFI’s, submittal review and inspections (punch lists).