22 LCT July 2006

Development

Beverly Flynn starts her training for feeding gas-fired ironerswatched by Alan O’Connor

IRISH AND STEAMLESSIrish laundry becomes first plant in Europe to be a ‘Steam Free’ zone.

At the sharp end all thewashing, drying, andironing in the plant is

heated by gas and there isno steam generated at all.Alan O’Connor has completedthe conversion of the entirecollection of 18-stage CBW,five tumblers and two ironerlines, to ‘steamless’efficiency and in so doinghas achieved major savingsin fuel costs. For not only isthere no steam, and noboiler, there is no oil fuel

store either. This is a trulyremarkable story for anotherreason, which tends tosharpen the debate amonglaundry people who haveperhaps tended to accept thereceived wisdom of the ageswith regard to steam as apower source derived fromoil burning. Alan O’Connor isnot a second, third or evenfourth generation of an ‘old’laundry family, he is firstgeneration and has been inthe business for a mere six

years, starting from scratch.The O’Connor family, then

headed by Alan’s father, TommyO’Connor, used to own one ofthe largest bakeries in Irelandand having decided to sell andmove on Alan started in thedrycleaning business in a unitshop. Rapidly perceiving thatrental laundry at a high qualitywas a fast expanding market,which was not being adequatelyserviced in the far west of thecountry, the move to premises inClaremorris took place and theOCL business began in earnestin 2000. The booming Celtic‘Tiger’ economy had resulted ina massive development intourism and the growth in hotelscreated the demand for qualitylaundered flatwork products, thisdemand OCL set out to fill.

Coming as they did from anequally ferocious consumer ofenergy - the bakery business -the O’Connors, father and son,set about researching theEuropean and UK market for themost efficient and economicmachinery to cater for thegrowing requirements of the newbusiness. A visit to the FrankfurtTexcare show resulted in WaltonDunlop of Dunlop DesignEngineering, being asked toinstall an energy saving systemfor heating water in the plant andthis system uses the market-leading Direct Contact WaterHeating System from Kemco inFlorida.

This system is the fastestwater heating system on themarket and delivers aguaranteed, 99.7 per cent energyefficiency in operation comparedto the 65 per cent - 75 per centefficiency performance ofconventional boilers for waterheating or steam generation.Demand led, the direct contactheater reacts to calls for heatedwater instantly and thus deliversmuch reduced fuel consumptionas there is no ‘build up’ delay inproducing at the correcttemperature. Experience of the

system in use has resulted insignificant savings and totalsavings of up to 50 per cent inenergy costs are set to beachieved over the first year inoperation. The heat exchangersinstalled as part of the DirectContact water heating system areeffectively returning heat fromeffluent waste water to theincoming feed water to the CBWand this too adds significantly tothe cost effectiveness of thesystem.

The OCL Laundry deliversperformance figures which atleast one or two laundrymanagers would be pleased toreport were being achieved intheir plants, for example: 270Kpieces per month representing190K kgs of work per four weekmonth. This uses 28K litres ofgas per month and this at 6.56kW/hr per litre delivers a .995kW per kg producedperformance ratio, or for a quickdefinition, one kilowatt of energyper one kilogram processed. Interms of water usage from theCBW fed by the Direct Contactsystem and Dunlop heatexchangers the figures are: CBW35kg loads, 18 stages, on a 95second cycle.

This gives a production figureof 1326 kg/hr using 6 cubicmetres of water per hour. Thefinal ratio being 3.77 litres ofwater per kilogram of workprocessed. For those of aquesting mind these are actualfigures that Walton Dunlop andAlan O’Connor would bepleased to confirm.

As Alan O’Connor says, “Thetraditional oil-fired steam boileris the most inefficient way ofheating water in industrialprocesses. We have nowdisconnected our original boilerhouse and all our energy needsare provided by gas-drivensystems. Having solved theCBW energy efficient watersupply problem, we thencommissioned the conversion ofour five tumbler dryers to gas

operation. We did this on siteand after that week our dryingtime is reduced, our energyconsumption is down and theneed for steam lines hasdisappeared. This left only theironers and from our Frankfurtvisit we were taken by Jensen toa user of their new gas-fired Jen-Roll, EXPG ironers based inDijon, France. As a result of thatvisit and in confirmation of ourfaith in the Jensen support teamin the UK, we ordered two newgas-fired ironers, feeders andfolders and these are nowproducing dry, crisply foldedsheets, at the excellent rate of 44lineal metres per minute. Wewere sadly disappointed by theattitude of other suppliers to thebusiness where it seems thattradition and status quo inoperational matters is the normalresponse to the sort of requestswe made in our quest for theefficiency levels we have nowachieved - without any steam andall the costs that go with steamsupply.

“Our energy costs across theplant and over the past full yearof operation are six per cent andthat includes everything you seehere. We had faith in oursuppliers’ ability to design good,effective solutions and apartfrom the anticipated teething andstart up hitches, everythingpromised has been delivered andwe are very happy with Dunlop,Jensen and Ecolab for theirsupport and assistance over thetime we spent researching andcommissioning our plant.

“We also have no boilerinsurance costs, no annualcertification costs, no leakingjoints from hundreds of metresof pipe, no corrosion anddeposits, reduced maintenancecosts, no steam generation costsand consequent start up delayseach day. We can run part of theplant as necessary withoutworrying about the boiler andmost of all we have reduced ouroperating costs to the absoluteminimum. There is no gas inIreland, as yet it is all imported,but the future for us, iscontracted for and although there

will be price rises, the use of gasin our plant gives so muchsaving overall that any otherconsiderations are relativelyunimportant at this point in time.We have a profitable andexpanding business and we areconfident of our ability toexpand into other areas asbusiness opportunities arise.”

Our visit to Claremorrisclearly demonstrated that the‘steamless’ laundry is a viablesolution to a set of problemsthat have been with industrysince men first wrestled with thehigh pressure devices of JamesWatt, and the Stephensons, 200years ago. In the 21st centurysurely the current climatechange and energy costs debatecan be given a working,engineered solution, whichachieves a best-fit answer to anage-old problem. If anewcomer to this verytraditional industry can see thatthe Emperor has no clothesothers might just follow.

As Jensen UK’s DennisRutland said to us after theevent, “We are very pleased withthe results which Alan O’Connorhas achieved which areobviously going to cause seriousdebate in our industry wherenovelty and technical innovationare too often disregarded. Steamgeneration has been the drivingforce of the business for so longthat people seem unable toaccept that an alternative ispossible. A ‘steamless’ laundryis a major technical advance andthe effects it will have oninvestment plans in the futurewill be significant as directorsand managers come to realisethat the age of steam is perhaps anostalgic vision which has beensuperseded by an energyreleased from within anothernatural resource.”

Editor’s note: This reportclearly dem ands f urtherinv estigation by the laundryindustry. If you have views onthe report then write to Laundry& Cleaning Today and we willpublish your letters for furtherdiscussion.

The people who made it happen. L to R: Walton Dunlop (Dunlop Design Engineering Ltd), Dennis Rutland (general manager,Jensen UK SSC), Beverly Flynn (TD, Independent Member of Parliament for Co. Mayo), Alan O’Connor (managing director OCLLaundry, Claremorris, Co. Mayo), Declan McAteer (director, Ecolab, Ireland)

In this issue of Laundry & CleaningToday, which publishes the latestCost Indices compiled by the TSA,it was very informative forrepresentatives of this journal to beinvited to Claremorris, CountyMayo close to the far west coast ofIreland to attend the ‘Open House’day at OCL laundry. Interesting aswell as informative because thisplant, owned by Alan O’Connor andhis other board members, lays claimto be the first laundry in Europe toaccept the challenge to find a radicaland cost-effective alternative to thetraditional steam-driven laundryoperation.

Report by Irving Scott