March 9, 2005 - Ed in the Spin Zone

If you are not fortunate enough to live in a house with laundry facilities, or close to your mom’s house, then you have three options – wear dirty clothes, buy new clothes when the old ones get dirty, or shove your clothing into a basket or pillowcase and take it to the local Laundromat.  Seeing how the Laundromats in town have such nice friendly names, it couldn’t be so bad. You could go to the Wash & Fun, Bubbles & Beans, Suds City South, Fluff & Fold, Launderland, Lucky Coin, or Super Laundry. They sound like amusement parks in old cartoons.

 Yesterday, the dedicated staff of edhat.com visited and called the Laundromats in town.  We were interested in what they charge for a wash and dry.  Breaking news – doing laundry at a Laundromat is not fun.  It is not particularly cheap either.  In a land where the entire currency is based on quarters – it typically costs 7 quarters for the top loading wash and a quarter to dry for a particular amount of time.

Actually, that was the mistake in yesterday’s contest. We should have asked subscribers how much dryer time you get for a quarter instead of how much 10 minutes of dryer time costs. And while we were looking at the standard top loading washer, it appears to our dedicated eyes that the there is a phase-out going on.  The front-loaders, that have more capacity, were far more popular. It could be that the overall cost is less. It could be that that they do a better job on tough stains. But, it is just possible that the front-loader’s popularity might  have to do with the fact that they have a window where you can see the bubbles and suds doing the Macarena with your underwear. Not only does it have entertainment value, but it also provides reassurance that, in fact, the clothes are still there and are getting clean.

Our cool map will show you all the places we surveyed.  Place your mouse over the dot to see the location’s wash and dry price. As we said above, most places charge $1.75 for a wash.  And a quarter buys you anywhere from 8 to 15 minutes time in the spin zone – the most typical is 10.

The dedicated staff do not claim to be mind readers, but certainly one thing going through the minds of people as they watch their clothes get clean is how much it would cost to buy their own appliances.  At Sears, you can buy the bottom of the line washer for $350 (200 loads @ $1.75)  and the bottom of the line dryer for $300 (200 hours).  That’s $650 bucks plus tax – probably after a year, you come out ahead. And, of course Sears always has great financing options. Currently they will give you 0% APR for a year - and a mere 27% after that. Yikes!

At Regal Cleaners on De La Vina (where drying is free on Wednesdays), we ran into Barry Nitikman, one of Santa Barbara’s most eligible bachelors.  He, like many others, chooses the drop and pickup option, where they charge by the pound (about $1/lb). Your stuff comes back folded and on hangers without doing any time in the Laundry World.

As our map tells, the longest dry time is at Suds City South (on Calle Real just past La Cumbre on the way to 154).  The cheapest wash in town is at Regal in IV (next to the grocery stores).  There, a regular top-load costs $1.75 just like everywhere else, but the double-front-loader only costs $1.50.

The average amount of dry-time for a quarter is 10.6 minutes.  Using some not-so-tricky math, we calculated the average cost of 10 minutes of drying time to be 24 cents. The average price of a standard wash is $1.84. Most of our subscribers guessed 25 cents for dry-time. Only Patrick guessed 24. Patrick wins an Edhat hat and shirt ensemble – no washing required.

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