Easy Mondays for Aucklanders

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 388, 23 June 1928, Page 5

Easy Mondays for Aucklanders

PURSUIT OF AN IDEAL AUCKLAND LAUNDRY SCHEME “Easy Mondays for all Auckland” it not the sort of ideal one can realise in a few months or a few years. Actually, its foundation was laid a quarter of a century ago and now the scheme which will make achievement possible is on the way. STARTING in a modest way in two | small cottages in Belgium Street, ! the Auckland Steam Laundry Com- | pany set itself the ideal, 25 years ago. j Under the able direction and managership of Mr. II S. Harrison and Mrs. j Harrison for the past five years, it has grown rapidly, spreading itself out over ] the land available on the site. Although j everything has been done to keep the | plant working at maximum load, business is now being turned away through j lack of facilities, and in most weeks j no further orders are accepted after j Tuesday. Only one solution of the problem j was possible. A new site, new building and additional equipment were necessary in order that the laundry ! might go forward with the city of j Auckland along the path of progress. Accordingly, the Auckland Laundry Company is acquiring the business of the old firm, buying a freehold site in Surrey Crescent. Grey Lynn, building a modern fire-proof building with 20,000 square feet of space at a cost of £15,000 and purchasing £12,000 worth of further plant. It is expected that the new building will be in full swing in six months. DAILY MIRACLE The metamorphosis of great heaps of dirty linen, dumped in at the back entrance to the present laundry in the morning, into neatly-folded piles of shining table cloths and immaculate sheets, by the afternoon, is the daily miracle undertaken at Belgium Street Hand work is practically eliminated, machines, washing, drying, starching, pressing, ironing, and polishing all the articles. After the piles of clothing and linen have been tallied (this in itself is no small job, for the laundry washes for 18 Auckland hotels and six shipping lines) and sorted, the articles, according to their kind, go into one of the six big rotary washing machines. Revolving five turns one way and five the other so that no knots will he tied in the materials, these big cylinders of copper, churn in casings of iron or concrete, into which pours steam at any beat desired. No chemicals are used in the washing machines. The soap, of which about three tons are used weekly, is made from the purest tallow r , in great vats on the premises. HYDRO EXTRACTORS From the washers the clothes go into copper urns, mounted on rubber bases, and whirling at anything from 2,500 to 3,500 revolutions a minute. Centrifugal force squashes the materials against the sides of the urns and automatically wrings the water from them. The clothing and linen are dry enough for ironing when they come out. One of the ingenious arrangements made by Mr. Harrison, the managingdirector. is the starching apparatus. The starch Is mixed to a known density (registered by hydrometers) and agitated by a propellor in a 400-gallon tank. From this it is run into the washer containing table linen. After the starching is complete the solution is filtered back into the tank again. Frills and finery belonging to the ladies are the only articles washed , by hand in the laundry. Great steam mangles take in the table-cloths and shoot them in polished beauty into the folder’s hands. These machines have polished steel rollers heated by steam. The “collar clubs” of several city firms are run at the laundry, which has all sorts of intricate machines for dealing with neckwear. One of them opens the collar sufficiently to allow for the insertion of the tie and another takes great care to polish the edges. Woollens and blankets are dried in a rotary air-drier and there are drying rooms for other articles with arrangements of fans, which keep the hot air moving downwards against its tendency to rise. . A big boiler, which eats up anything from 10 to 30 tons of coal a week, is the driving force in the establishment, which has a repair shop capable of making anything but castings. The equipment can make a gear wheel up to 22 inches in diameter. There are employed in the present building about 65 hands and the machinery has been valued at well over £IO,OOO. One of the chief objects of the new company will be to cater for the full requirements of family washing. The charge will be by weight of the finished and dried articles at a price within the reach of every household. This will be the achievement of “Easy Monday for all Auckland.” Advt.