Carson Business Sunday: Laundry doesn't take cash any more

The chore of doing laundry turned a lot smarter Friday at the Casa del Vista apartments.

The new washers and dryers are smart, tenants pay for their loads with smart cards instead of coins and apartment manager Frank Albright thinks he did the smart thing by adopting the computerized payment system.

The laundry equipment is owned and maintained by Web Laundry Services Inc., which replaced the eight washers and dryers in the tenant-only laundry room with new Maytag commercial machines.

The new machines no longer have coin boxes to accept quarters for payment. A thinner, longer slot is provided for the smart cards each tenant has been issued.

The cards are "smart" because each had a computer chip and memory inside that can be filled with cash value, explained Don Willard, who has been installing and maintaining equipment for Web for 20 years. Each time a card is put in a washer or dryer slot, the machine displays how much value is left in the card, then deducts the cost of a load when a cycle is chosen.

"The system gets the cash out of the laundry room and the tenants don't have to make sure they have a pocket of quarters," Willard said.

Albright said he expects more of the tenants of the Conestoga Drive apartment complex will use the on-site laundry because of the new payment system.

"We don't have a bill changer here so they would go downtown to get change and they'd just do their laundry there," Albright said.

Though one of the sales points of the new electronic payment system is eliminating the temptation to would-be thieves of coin boxes full of quarters, Albright said that was not a factor in requesting the new system. "We've only had one burglary attempt - unsuccessful - in 20 years here," he said.

But such burglary attempts often cost machine owners several times as much in repairs as the few dollars a thief might get out of a coin box, Willard said. And the card pay system eliminates coin jamming problems.

"Of course, the card sometimes gets stuck in the slot, or gets broken so someone has to call us to replace it," Willard said.

Besides the card-pay electronics, the new smart washers and dryers have built-in electronic diagnostic systems, he said. If a machine breaks down, a problem code is displayed that helps Willard pinpoint the problem and repair it more quickly.

To get Casa del Vista's tenants started, Web provided each apartment with one payment card charged with $3 in laundry value. A new box on the laundry wall lets them add value to the cards, transferring it from a charge card or debit card.

For tenants without such cards, Web will set up accounts just for laundry use and provide its own Web Charge Card that is exclusively for laundry use. The tenant would then be billed monthly.

The card pay system is the company's fourth in Western Nevada and the second in Carson City, Willard said. The first in the area was installed about a year ago in Carson at the Carson Catalina Apartments.

Web Laundry Services handles laundry accounts ranging from just a couple machines at small apartment houses to multiple, large facilities at colleges and universities.

At the large installations, another electronic system can be installed that hooks into the telephone system so residents can call and be told by a computer whether any machines are available. If not, the computer will call back to let a resident know when machines become available.