Press releases

Around 650 kg of laundry per week –
dried with hot water!

No. 045/2013
H2O-Trockner von Miele Professional

Nursing home saves money with co-generation plants and Miele

65 residents, most of them suffering from dementia, keep the 45 employees at the Wahl nursing home in Wietze near the German town of Celle on their toes: They offer art and pet therapy, oversee elderly residents working in the garden – and ensure that personal laundry is ready and available again in next to no time. The home's on-premise laundry not only reflects the current state of the art, it is also extremely economical and efficient: A new tumble dryer from Miele Professional has been in operation there since the summer of 2012, operating at virtually no cost at all although it runs around 15 times a day.

The H2O dryer is heated using hot water. Centrally heated water with a temperature of around 80°C from two on-site co-generation plants, buffered in tanks, is in plentiful supply. This heat must be used or dissipated for the plant's cooling circuit to operate properly. If there is no taker, the tanks fill up and the co-generation plants are automatically taken off-line. In such circumstances, the only source of power remaining is expensive electricity from the grid.

Katrin Wahl-Harms, manageress of the nursing home, tested Miele's H2O dryer even before it was officially launched. The bottom line: 'We are extremely satisfied!' Firstly, the dryer is child's play to use, even by temporary employees working nights. Secondly, it offers one decisive advantage: 'Many co-generation plants are forced to shut down in summer because their operators simply do not know what to do with the hot water they produce.' At the Wahl nursing home, this heat is regularly put to good use to pre-heat the air passing through their new tumble dryer. At the same time, this guarantees the smooth operation of the co-generation plant, producing value-for-money electricity and heat throughout the entire year, not only for the 27 single and 19 double rooms.

'Residents' personal wear accounts for the bulk of work in the laundry, which also includes Turkish towelling, sheets, duvet covers and the carers' own workwear', says Katrin Wahl-Harms.

Even activities pursued by residents, some of which tender their own flowerbeds in the garden, place great demands on the laundry. Each week, around 650 kg of laundry are washed and dried – with the laundry working a 6-day week using the most modern of equipment, including two Miele washerextractors each with a 10 kg load capacity.

Investment in cheap energy generation was the first project undertaken by the home. This year, to mark its fiftieth anniversary, the care home will be extended and thoroughly modernised. Thereafter, the laundry is likely to have to assume even more tasks but will no doubt rise to meet the new challenges, thanks to modern facilities and technology. For the most part, laundry leaves the dryer after only 50 minutes. An older 10 kg electrically heated dryer is also in operation. Thanks to on-site co-generation, even this model is heated cheaply as the nursing home in Wietze no longer draws any conventionally generated electricity from the national grid.

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Company profile: Miele is the world leader in the field of premium domestic appliances including cooking, baking and steam-cooking appliances, refrigeration products, coffee makers, dishwashers and laundry and floorcare products. This line-up is augmented by dishwashers, washer-extractors and tumble dryers for commercial use as well as washer-disinfectors and sterilisers for use in medical and laboratory applications (Miele Professional). The company, founded in 1899, has 8 production plants in Germany and one plant each in Austria, the Czech Republic, China and Romania. 2011/12 turnover amounted to approx. EUR 3.04 bn with sales outside Germany accounting for 70%. Miele is represented with its own sales subsidiaries and via importers in almost 100 countries. The Miele company, now in the fourth generation of family ownership, employs a workforce of oven 16,700 with two-thirds in Germany. The company headquarters are located in Gütersloh/Westphalia, Germany.

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Your contact

Anke Schläger
+ 49 5241 89-1949
anke.schlaeger@miele.com

Media information

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H2O-Trockner von Miele Professional

Simple to use and extremely economical in operation: The H2O dryer from Miele Professional, here being unloaded by laundry worker Nina Groo.

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Geschäftsführerin Katrin Wahl-Harms

Manageress Katrin Wahl-Harms in the basement boiler room where the two unit-type power generators are installed.

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Der Haupteingang des Senioren- und Pflegeheims Wahl in Wietze bei Celle

The main entrance to the Wahl nursing home in Wietze near Celle in northern Germany. 65 residents live here in single and double rooms.

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