By Timothy Oommen, Owner — Laundini Laundromat | laundinilaundromat.com
Nobody talks about the machines.
Every laundry service will tell you they wash, dry, and fold. Nobody explains what’s actually doing the washing, why it matters, what it cost them to figure that out, and what a wrong decision looks like when it goes sideways at the worst possible moment.
I’m going to tell you all of it.
Because the machines running your laundry across our four Cook County locations — Evanston, Bucktown, Skokie, and Wheeling — are not an afterthought. They are the entire operation. Every other decision we make sits on top of them.
First, What Nobody Tells You About Buying Commercial Laundry Equipment
Before I get into specific brands, I want to explain something that took me real money to learn.
Buying commercial laundry machines is not like buying appliances for your house. You cannot just pick the one with the best reviews on a website and have it delivered. The machine you can actually install depends entirely on what’s already in the building.
Electrical. Commercial laundry equipment runs on either 120-volt or 240-volt circuits. What’s already running through the walls of your building determines what you can plug in without a full electrical retrofit — which costs serious money and serious time. I had to map the existing utility lines in every location before I could even start shopping seriously.
Water and sewer. The length and routing of sewer lines matters more than most people think. A machine that works perfectly in one building layout becomes a plumbing nightmare in another. Feasibility isn’t just about whether the machine fits through the door.
Gas. Here’s something counterintuitive — gas dryers are actually cheaper to retrofit for than electric in many cases. Gas lines are more flexible to extend and the operating costs are lower long-term. At several of our locations, gas made more sense than going fully electric.
Space. Stacked washer-dryer units are newer technology and genuinely space-efficient. I’ve looked at them seriously. But in a commercial laundry context, stacked units are still proving themselves and I’m not ready to be the guinea pig on an unproven configuration when people’s laundry is depending on the machines working every single day. Maybe in a future location. Not yet.
The point is: you don’t just buy a machine. You buy a machine that fits your building, your utilities, your budget, and your tolerance for downtime when something goes wrong.
The Brands We Run and Why
Dexter — The Toyota of the Industry
The majority of our machines across all four locations are Dexter. If I had to explain Dexter to someone who’d never heard of them, I’d say this: they are the Toyota Camry of commercial laundry equipment.
Not the flashiest thing in the room. Not the most talked-about. But reliable in a way that makes you deeply grateful every single day that you chose them over something more exciting.
Dexter machines are built to be fixed. When something goes wrong — and in a multi-location commercial operation, something always eventually goes wrong — Dexter parts are available, Dexter technicians are findable, and the repair is usually straightforward. That matters enormously when a machine going down means lost revenue and frustrated customers.
We run both front loaders and top loaders. Front loaders are the modern standard — they use less water, they’re gentler on fabric, and they’re what most people expect when they picture a quality wash. But top loaders have their place too. They use more water and they’re old school in their mechanics, but I have older customers who specifically prefer them. They grew up with top loaders. They trust top loaders. Customer preference is a real thing and I’m not going to override it with a preference of my own.
Dexter also supports card payment and NFC payment on their newer units — which matters for walk-in customers and matters for the overall experience of the laundromat. A machine that only takes quarters in 2025 is a machine that loses customers.
Speed Queen — Reliable but It’ll Cost You
We have Speed Queens across our locations and they earn their place. Speed Queen has a reputation in the commercial laundry world for durability that is genuinely deserved. These machines are built like they expect to run for twenty years, and they largely do.
The trade-off is price. Speed Queen equipment costs more upfront than comparable machines from other manufacturers, and that cost is real when you’re equipping multiple locations simultaneously. I buy Speed Queens when the value proposition makes sense for a specific location — when I need reliability in a high-volume spot and I have the capital to justify it.
Not every machine in every location needs to be a Speed Queen. But the ones that are, I’m glad about.
Huebsch — The Underrated One
Huebsch doesn’t get talked about as much as Dexter or Speed Queen but they belong in the conversation. Solid commercial machines, good build quality, performs consistently. If you’re outfitting a laundromat and you haven’t priced Huebsch alongside the bigger names, you’re leaving a potentially good option on the table.
We run Huebsch at select locations where they made sense for the capacity and budget at the time of buildout.
Maytag — Familiar for a Reason
Maytag commercial equipment is in our mix as well. The brand name carries trust with customers who recognize it from their own homes, which is a small but real psychological advantage in a walk-in laundromat setting. The commercial versions are more robust than the residential ones, and they perform reliably in our context.
Electrolux — The BMW I’m Not Ready to Buy Yet
This is the one I think about.
Electrolux commercial laundry equipment is, in my estimation, the BMW of the industry. Loaded with features. Genuinely impressive technology. Excellent wash performance. And expensive to fix in a way that makes you think very carefully before you commit.
When something goes wrong with a BMW, you feel it in your wallet differently than when something goes wrong with a Toyota. The parts are more specialized, the technicians fewer, the repair bills higher.
I’ve looked seriously at Electrolux, particularly at their stacked washer-dryer configurations which represent some of the more interesting newer technology in the space. The features are real. The results are legitimately good.
But I’m not ready to retrofit multiple locations around equipment that would make me dependent on a smaller pool of repair technicians and more expensive parts — not at this stage of the business. Maybe when we have more locations, more capital reserves, and more margin for a machine being out of commission while we wait for a specialist.
For now, Electrolux is the aspirational purchase. The one I’m watching closely while staying loyal to what I know works.
How I Actually Acquire the Machines
I buy new and used, depending on the situation.
When a laundromat closes down, sometimes the equipment becomes available at significantly below market value. I look at those opportunities seriously. A Dexter or Speed Queen that’s been maintained properly and has good hours on it is still a valuable machine. The key word is maintained — a cheap machine with a bad maintenance history is not a deal, it’s a liability in disguise.
I look for value above everything else. A newer machine that washes faster, accepts card and NFC payments, and has better cycle efficiency might cost more upfront but earn that cost back over time in customer volume and operational reliability. I run those numbers before I buy anything.
The existing utilities in the building always shape the decision. There is no point falling in love with a machine that requires electrical infrastructure the building doesn’t have and can’t support without a $15,000 retrofit.
The Machine That Taught Me the Most Expensive Lesson
I have to tell you about the 60-pounder.
One of our largest machines — a 60-pound capacity commercial washer — was not installed correctly the first time. The base installation was wrong. I won’t get into the full technical details but the short version is: it cost me serious money to install it the first time. Then it cost me serious money again to fix what the first installation got wrong. And throughout that entire period, the machine was out of commission — which meant customers who needed a large-capacity machine couldn’t use it, which meant lost revenue on top of the repair and reinstallation costs.
It was one of the more painful stretches of building this business. Not because the machine failed — machines can fail, that’s the nature of mechanical equipment — but because it was a preventable failure that came down to the installation being done wrong the first time by people I trusted to do it right.
What I learned: never cut corners on installation. The machine itself is not the only variable. How it gets put in the ground matters just as much as what it can do once it’s running.
I have not made that mistake twice.
What I’d Change If I Were Starting Over
Honestly? I’d move faster on NFC and card payment across every machine from day one. The friction of quarters is real for walk-in customers and removing it removes an objection before it becomes a reason to leave.
I’d also spend more time on the utility assessment before committing to a location. The machines you can run are shaped entirely by what’s in the walls. Understanding that fully before you sign anything saves money and headaches downstream.
And I’d be even more conservative about new technology than I already am. In commercial laundry, the proven thing that works is almost always better than the exciting new thing that might work. Your customers’ clothes are depending on those machines running today, not on you testing something interesting.
That’s the discipline I try to hold. Do what works. Every time.
If you’re curious about what’s running the laundry in your specific order, ask us. We’re not secretive about it. Email info@laundinilaundromat.com or book your first pickup at laundinilaundromat.com. Cook County wide. 24-hour turnaround.
Timothy Oommen is the founder and owner of Laundini Laundromat, with locations in Evanston, Bucktown, Skokie, and Wheeling, IL.