When a San Francisco Bayfront Hotel in Burlingame, CA needed to upgrade their on-premise laundry with a new washer-extractor, Western State Design’s (WSD) Bryan Maxwell had no problem convincing them that the cost-savings of the energy-efficient and water-efficient Milnor 30022 X8J commercial washing machine made it the right choice for their needs. That was the easy part. The real challenge was to move this 1.2 ton washer-extractor – the weight of an average car – into the third floor on-premise laundry of the hotel.
The Milnor 30022 X8J was far too large and heavy for the hotel’s elevators. So the only other option to get the new washer-extractor up to the hotel’s on-premise laundry was to lift the commercial washer onto the roof of the hotel and rig it into place from there. After speaking with WSD’s Hayward, CA machinery moving service neighbor, Lawson Drayage, Maxwell knew that with a little technical planning and some luck, the Bayfront hotel could have their new Milnor washer-extractor specially delivered right to their on-premise laundry floor without any problems.
Fast forward to the morning of Thursday, September 12. Maxwell met up with Lawson Drayage at the hotel. With the crane and one-ton Milnor washer-extractor set to go, the crew received a visit from the media. The San Francisco ABC affiliate, KGO TV had caught wind of WSD and Lawson’s endeavor and showed up, camera-in-hand, to cover this impressive feat of planning and engineering.
First, the crew removed and rigged the old washer safely from the third floor. Once the old washer was safely on the ground, they rigged up the new commercial washer-extractor.
Then blast-off!
“Sometimes selling industrial laundry machinery has its challenges. The machinery can be big, sometimes too big to rig it into the on-premise laundry. We’ve made holes in walls, holes in floors, rigged down elevator shafts or completely disassembled the equipment to rig it into the laundry. This morning we needed a little help from a crane to remove the old piece of junk and deliver the new one,” said Maxwell.
Up, up… 
And away!
And touchdown!
The Lawson crew placed a platform of two-by-tens across the roof to land the Milnor 30022 X8J on, so to protect the roof and the machine itself. From there it was an “easy” roll of the commercial washer from the roof, through the double doors and into the hotel’s on-premise laundry, across the makeshift ramp.
Because the wash-extractor was installed above grade it could not be a traditional solid mount design. “Often we work with solid mount washer-extractors which must be installed on a concrete slab to absorb the dynamic forces of the washers during high spin. Since this washer-extractor is being placed on the third floor, it is equipped with dynamically tuned suspension to absorb those forces,” said Maxwell.
Maxwell was impressed by how smoothly the whole process went under the direction of Lawson Drayage. “It’s not every day that we have to move a 1.2 ton commercial washing machine into a third floor on-premise laundry, but we’re glad we decided to work with such an experienced machine moving service,” said Maxwell.
While proud of the day’s achievement, Maxwell is happy he won’t be repeating the process to replace the new washer anytime soon. “Machines like this are subject to a lot of stress when loads are out of balance. Milnor tests this machine by spinning a 20 percent out-of-balance load at 300 G’s for 1,000 hours and nothing can fail,” he said.
What’s the next challenging commercial washer install for Western State Design? You’ll have to wait and see. Until then, the San Francisco Bayfront hotel will be extremely happy with the reduced energy and water usage of their new Milnor 30022 X8J washer-extractor and WSD will be working to provide all of their clients with the most efficient on-premise laundry facilities in the industry.