When It's Too Big for a Home Washer

Some items just don't belong in a home washer, no matter how you fold or stuff them in. A family-sized sleeping bag, a stack of moving blankets, a couple of boat cushions covered in salt spray — these need room to actually move through the water and rinse clean, and a machine that's too small just traps soap and moisture in the fill instead of washing it out. That's the exact problem our 100 lb washer was brought in to solve, and it's become the go-to option for anyone in Hollywood dealing with a bulky item that won't fit anywhere else.

Sleeping bags are one of the most common requests, priced at a flat $18.00 regardless of whether it's a compact backpacking bag or a heavier family-camping one. After a weekend at Edisto or a trip up into the mountains, a sleeping bag picks up a mix of body oils, dirt and campfire smoke that a quick home wash rarely gets all the way out of the fill — a full wash and full dry in a properly sized machine does.

Beyond sleeping bags, we regularly handle a wider range of oversized loads: moving blankets that pick up dust and grime during a move, pet beds and blankets that hold onto odor far more stubbornly than people expect, and boat or beach gear that's spent the season absorbing salt air and sand. All of these share the same basic problem — they're too bulky for a standard machine to clean properly — and all of them benefit from the extra room our larger washers provide.

Horse blankets & barn gear. Turnout sheets, stable blankets and coolers get properly washed and fully dried in the 100 lb machine — enough room for the hair, mud and bulk that jams a home washer. Horse blankets are $15.00 each.

If you're not sure whether a specific item qualifies as an oversized load, the easiest thing to do is bring it by. Our staff can look at the size and fabric and tell you honestly whether it's a good fit for a wash cycle here, or whether it needs a different kind of care altogether. As with everything we do, if something's outside what we handle, we'll say so up front rather than take a chance with it.

Large items often show up alongside a regular laundry day rather than as a standalone trip, so it's worth knowing our self-service floor has this same 100 lb washer if you'd rather run it yourself, and our comforter & bedding service covers the similar case of oversized bedding that needs the same kind of capacity.