The method behind the laundry planner on every UniMac product page — published so you can check our work
Try it yourself: the interactive version of this method is our free Commercial Laundry Sizing Calculator — no signup, no email.
Every UniMac product page on this site carries a live laundry planner that sizes throughput, moisture load, and machine count around that exact SKU and its real price. Most dealers treat sizing math as a black box. We publish ours, because a laundry room that is sized wrong — usually undersized dryers — costs the owner labor and linen life every single day. If you want us to run these numbers against your actual facility, call (732) 681-0500.
Pounds per shift = rated capacity × loads per hour × shift hours. Loads per hour depends on the washer family and soil level, following the UniMac / Alliance Laundry Systems planning method: UW pocket hardmounts run 1.2 / 1.5 / 2.0 loads per hour for heavy / normal / light soil; UC cabinet hardmounts, UY softmounts, and UST stacks run 1.0 / 1.2 / 1.5. Washers typically process 1–2 loads per hour including load and unload time; the dryer should finish in a similar window so the pair stays in rhythm.
Weekly volume uses your real operating schedule (7-day · 49 hr, 6-day · 42 hr, 5-day · 35 hr, or custom hours).
How hard the washer extracts determines how much water the dryer must evaporate. On terry goods (the hardest common load), retained moisture runs from roughly 92% of dry weight at 100 G to 62% at 400 G, interpolated linearly between those points. Example on a 65 lb terry load: a 100 G extract leaves about 59.8 lb of water; a 400 G extract leaves about 40.3 lb — 19.5 lb less water that your dryer never has to burn gas evaporating. This is why a higher-G washer often pays for itself in dryer utility costs and cycle time.
Because drying cycles run longer than wash cycles, dryer capacity must exceed washer capacity. The planning bands we use: 2:1 when the paired washer extracts at 100 G, 1.5:1 at 200 G, and 1.25:1 at 300–400 G. General rule: size the dryer one size larger than the washer.
Washer pounds needed = units × lb per unit × occupancy factor × 7 days ÷ operating hours per week ÷ loads per hour. The occupancy factor is a planning rule, not a straight percentage: facilities averaging below 60% occupancy plan at 0.8; everyone else plans at the full factor, because the laundry has to keep up on the busiest day. Planning figures per unit: nursing home / long-term care about 16 lb per bed per day, hospitals about 20 lb per bed, hotels about 14 lb per room (add ~3 lb per room for duvet and pillow programs). Dryer pounds needed = washer need × the ratio from section 3. Machine count = that requirement divided by the capacity of the machine you are looking at, rounded up.
Within each facility type, the variables that actually move volume: hotel service level (extended-stay through resort, 8–18 lb/room, driven by pool, food service, banquet, golf, and health-club amenities), healthcare care level (assisted living through skilled care) plus personal clothing, on-premise diaper/pad washing and incontinence levels, and table-linen programs for restaurants. Our sizing calculator exposes these as dropdowns.
Water and sewer figures shown on planner cards use the Alliance Laundry Systems planning-guide figures for the model family where published, at national-average utility rates (editable on the page). They are planning estimates, not a utility bill guarantee — actual consumption varies with programming, fabric mix, and incoming water temperature. UniMac does not publish cycle-minute specs on sell sheets, so cycle assumptions follow the planning method above.
100 rooms × 14 lb × 100% design occupancy × 7 days = 9,800 lb per week. At 49 operating hours and 1.2 loads per hour, that requires about 167 lb of washer capacity and, at a 1.5:1 ratio, about 250 lb of dryer capacity — e.g. two 85 lb washer-extractors paired with 75 lb dryers, with headroom for linen-heavy weekends. A 50-bed nursing home at 16 lb per bed works out to roughly 5,600 lb per week — typically a pair of 45 lb washers with 55–75 lb dryers, depending on infection-control workflow.
These are the same numbers the planner computes live on every product page, against that machine's real price.
The planner gets you to a defensible starting point. A real quote needs your floor plan, utilities, exhaust runs, and linen program. We do site assessments across New Jersey, eastern Pennsylvania, New York City, and Delaware — call (732) 681-0500 or use the quote form on any product page.
Sizing method © HM Commercial Laundry, based on the UniMac / Alliance Laundry Systems planning method. If you reuse this, credit the source.
Effective Date: March 2026
Last Updated: August 19, 2026
