Careful selection pays in processing bedlinen

The selection of the “right type” of bedlinen can be a minefield for the unwary buyer as there are so many options. This applies both to hotels and to textile rental businesses.

Making an ill-informed choice can often have significant financial implications, which is why complaints abound.

The disgruntled end-user customer often blames problems on the high volume equipment used in a modern rental plant, without realising that the problem lies in the choice of fabric.

Yet some rental operators manage to avoid problems because they consider the options carefully at each stage of the buying and specifying process.

The first decision to make is whether to buy the bedlinen directly from the mill or through a local distributor/agent. Both options have pros and cons.

In the short term, buying directly from the mill can seem “cheaper” as any local distributor must add its margins onto the purchase price.

However, many distributors will be buying very high volumes as they will be selling to many customers. So they can negotiate a more competitive price than a single buyer can do.

But pricing is not the only concern. Most textile production takes place outside the UK, primarily in the Far East and the Mediterranean regions.

This leads to significant logistical problems in terms of communication, pro-forma payment, minimum ordered quantities and delivery/shipping arrangements. Further, if the fabric supplied fails to meet the buyer’s specification or a fault appears at a later stage, then returning the fabric will prove very difficult.

Once the textiles have landed in the UK and the Letter of Credit has been accepted then, in practice, the goods are your responsibility.

Once the buying route has been decided, the next hurdle is specifying the textile products. There are two key components – the quality of the fabric and the processes used to convert it into the finished goods – often referred to as CMT (cut, made and trimmed).

The quality spec should identify a number of key elements.

First, the spec must state the fibre content – for example, 100% cotton or 80/20 cotton/polyester and so on. The type and quantity of fibre used will have a big impact on the laundry’s productivity and operational costs.

For example, processing a 100% cotton will use much more energy and take more time than a blend such as 80/20 cotton/polyester. The 100% cotton retains a higher degree of moisture than a blend with 20% polyester. A cotton/polyester blend sheet will often be more durable than a 100% cotton one as the blended fabric is less susceptible to wash and bleach damage.

However, it can be more difficult to obtain the same quality of handle, user comfort and finish on a cotton/polyester. Some suppliers are much better than others in selecting fibre diameter, yarn twist and spinning method than others.

Remember that the best choice of fibre content is likely to vary according to the type of product. For example, a 100% cotton may be the best choice for towels but to minimise energy costs a 80/20 cotton/polyester will be better suited to sheeting and a 100% polyester could be a good choice for table linen for the same reason.

The next considerations are the thread count and the yarn tex. The thread count refers to the number of threads per inch in both the warp and weft of the fabric. The tex refers to the “gauge” of the yarn, which is normally measured in mass per unit length. So 1,000m of a 40tex yarn will weigh 40g. The higher the tex number (count) the heavier/thicker the yarn when measured in tex.

The opposite applies to threads gauged using the English Cotton Count where the higher the number, the lighter the yarn will be.

The thread count – or the density with which the warp and weft yarns are packed together – will affect the handle and drape of a fabric.

Increasingly users want thread counts above 200 as high thread counts are often mistakenly equated with better quality.

Textiles with a thread count above 200 are normally known as percale, which has become fashionable in the high-end hospitality market. This trend can lead to many problems.

Higher thread count fabrics take longer to weave and are therefore more expensive. This can often mean that to make a high thread fabric “cost effective” to purchase, manufacturers may use lighter, lower tex yarns. As a result the fabric is inherently “weaker” and may not have the same or similar fabric life as a lower thread count fabric with a higher tex count.

High thread counts also present a number of potential laundry problems. With thread counts above 200, the higher the count, the lower the permeability and porosity of the fabric so it is more difficult for air and water to pass through.

When these high thread count textiles are processed in a tunnel washer, the fabric will often “balloon”, causing blockages.

High thread count fabrics are also more prone to damage in the membrane press. When the load is discharged from the washer it will have slugs of water and air trapped in the material. If the press ramps up to pressure too fast, these slugs are pushed so rapidly through the fabric that clusters of pin holes and splits will often occur.

During weaving, textile manufacturers will place a sizing onto the warp yarns (the yarns that go down the length of the material) in order to make the yarn stiffer. Some manufacturers may add a lubricant to the weft yarns (those that go across the width of the fabric) to help with the smooth insertion of the yarn at very high speed.

If these sizings are not completely removed after weaving they will often produce very unpleasant side effects, such as cracked-ice creases, on laundered items.

A fabric specification that includes the removal of all fabric sizing is not normally possible at this point because the fabric then has to be handled automatically through cut, make and trim. Some final sizing is needed to maintain output rates throughout the CMT process.

Ideally the fabric finisher should remove the warp and weft sizings or lubricants in the finishing mill, immediately after weaving the grey cloth. This cloth is scoured and bleached, then re-sized for ease of handling in CMT.

So the rental purchaser needs to specify that this final re-sizing must be readily removable in the first wash that the laundry will carry out before the new stock goes into the system. This may need different wash chemicals from those normally used.

The next area of concern relates to whiteness and brightness levels.

Cotton is naturally a creamy-yellow colour and once the fabric has been woven it needs to go through a series of special treatments to enhance its appearance. This includes bleaching, which will always cause some fabric damage. On 100% cotton items this damage can be easily measured using the cuprammonium fluidity test.

However, this type of chemical test cannot be applied to cotton/polyester blends, so a tensile strength test is used to determine the degree of pre-existing fabric damage. There are no published guidelines for the target strengths of new hospitality fabrics but DD ENV 14237 gives guidelines for healthcare textiles and all buyers should refer its key elements in the textile specification.

Pre-shrinking is one of the most important treatments for the fabric. The stresses placed in the fabric during manufacture will cause all textiles to shrink to some extent. The level of shrinkage is controlled by the textile mill and the level of treatment applied.

However, the Laundry Technology Centre has seen a significant number of items give an acceptable maximum of 7% shrinkage in the warp and weft after the three mandatory test washes but then continue to shrink over the next 15 – 20 processes. LTC has identified up to 24% area shrinkage on bedlinen after just 25 washes.

If the user is maintaining the correct stock holding levels this excessive shrinkage may only become apparent six months or so after the stock goes into service. If the stock was bought from a local UK supplier, then there should not be a problem but if stock has been bought directly from the mill, it is unlikely to consider enquiries after the stock has been in service for such a long time.

Shrinkage and any other latent defect can be resolved either by testing each new stock consignment or by taking out unprocessed samples from each batch and holding them for six to nine months. If no problems are identified in this time, then the samples can be introduced into the system.

The purchase of textiles can be a minefield. But, with careful planning the right textile can give several years of good service to ensure satisfaction for everyone.