Doing laundry will soon become easier for Ohio University students.
OU’s laundry facilities will have a new program by Oct. 7 to notify students when their clothes from the washers and dryers are done, Pete Trentacoste, executive director of Housing and Residence Life, said.
Students will have the ability to scan a QR code advertised in each laundry facility or log onto a designated website to utilize the service, Trentacoste said.
“Once logged in, students can view which units are in use and which units are available,” Trentacoste said in an email. “Additionally, if a student is using a unit they can request either an email or text alert when the wash/dry cycle is one, three or five minutes from being completed.”
When using the service, students will be able to see each laundry room in the system and click on their desired location to see whether there are open machines available for use, Trentacoste said.
There is no additional fee for the university to have the service, Trentacoste said.
All 223 washers and 255 dryers on OU’s campus were replaced with new machines in July, and the new machines were paid for by the vendor that leases the machines to the university. The machines are owned by Caldwell and Gregory, so OU did not pay for them. It is $1.75 to wash and $0.75 to dry a load.
“The program was added to increase laundry room efficiency and service to our students,” Trentacoste said in an email.
Students have mixed viewpoints about the new program.
“The new laundry service will allow people to become more aware of their laundry,” Caleb Callahan, a freshman studying wildlife and conservation biology, said. “Most people just come in and leave their laundry, and sometimes they do not come back in time to get it.”
He said he hopes that will also increase the amount of open washers and dryers in the laundry rooms.
Katie Oldenburg, a sophomore studying biology, compared doing laundry on OU’s campus to going to a laundromat by how quick and simple it is to wait for laundry loads to be completed.
“I feel like people will not care (about the text notifications),” Oldenburg said. “It only takes an hour to wash your stuff.”
