Prestonhall – Energy Efficient Ironing

Fishers is constantly pushing to improve its efficiency and its environmental credentials, and no more so than at its largest laundry at Prestonhall in Cupar.

During lockdowns 1 and 2, Fishers invested in the latest direct heat ironers which no longer require steam to power them as they use their own integral gas burners to heat thermal oil. This results in an improvement in the quality of the laundered linen and a reduction in emissions from the Cupar laundry as it now only has to operate one steam boiler rather than the previous two, and at less than half the pressure that was previously required.

Joe McDonagh, Operations Manager at Prestonhall, Cupar, is confident that this is a win-win situation:

“This has benefited the customers by giving them better quality and it means we can produce more in a smaller space of time, so it makes it faster and more efficient. Our biggest focus is on ‘right first time’ and to get as much laundry out to the customer at the right time and this will also help with that.”

“The environmental [benefits], especially for the gas ironers, is much better than we conventionally used to use. We used to use steam rated ironers which are high in gas consumption. Now the new gas ironers have their own burner which allows it to be modulated through a digital burner. It’s much more efficient and uses less gas.”

Both ironers were installed during lockdown, when the laundry was running at a much reduced capacity than normal.

Joe added:

“Everything was done in lockdown. Even with all the restrictions, with the engineering team on site, all the job was done by ourselves. The only thing we had to outsource was the gas, which has to be done by a certified engineer. Everything else was done in house by our own engineering staff.”

“It took for the first one in the first lockdown about two weeks. It was fully operational probably within two-and-a-half weeks. The second one in the second part of lockdown took roughly about three weeks, operational after three-and-a-half weeks.”

A side benefit has also been for the team at Prestonhall who take a real pride in their work. Here’s Joe again:

“We have a very experienced team and it’s been a benefit to them. It’s made the job a lot easier for them and they have also seen the quality that’s coming out of the machines, which is making it better for them.”

“Next for Prestonhall is to continually improve what we’ve put in, invest in our staff and invest in the process to try and make ourselves more efficient and reduce out carbon footprint.”