How do commercial washers get soap?
Commercial washers in hotel, nursing home, or athletic settings often are hooked up to a chemical injection system. That system provides the soap detergent, bleach, and softener needed for the wash program. Wascomat washers can manually take soap, bleach, and softener through a soap dispenser on top of the machine but a chemical injection system is recommended to provide precision and save costs.
Where you manually add soap to a Wascomat washer. Left to right from the back: softener (flower), bleach (bottle). Front left to right: (prewash (I), wash (II); add detergent to either of these.
The chemical injection system sits on the wall behind the washer and has a series various pumps attached by tubing to buckets or barrels of bulk chemicals. The washer talks to the chemical system and will call for a chemical at when needed for a step in a program. In the back of the washer you may see an electronic signal wire going to what is called an I/O board. You will also see the chemicals hooked up through tubes into ports in the back of the machine.
Let’s say you are washing white sheets. You would select “White sheets” from the washer’s program menu and start the load. When the washer enters into the wash step it will signal the chemical system that it needs detergent. The detergent will dispense in an amount appropriately sized for that capacity of washer. After a few rinses and extracts the washer may call for bleach. Again, the chemical system will get a signal from the washer calling for bleach.
Chemical companies such as AutoChlor, Ecolab, Proctor & Gamble, amongst others have each done their research on their chemicals. They typically custom program the washer and may change the duration of time for the steps and how much chemical is dispensed into the machine.
Wascomat recommends “flush manifold” chemical injection system. These dilute the chemicals with water before they are injected into the washer. Undiluted chemicals can be harsh and corrode a machine. Chemical systems that aren’t hooked into the ports of the washer and instead use the siphon breaker or soap tray are highly discouraged.