A laundromat is one of the more utility-intensive small businesses that can occupy a standard commercial tenancy, and utility capacity is one of the easiest things for a buyer to assume rather than verify.

A bank of washers and dryers draws substantially more water, drainage capacity, and often gas or electricity than most retail or office tenancies the same building was originally designed around. Commercial washers need continuous water supply at adequate pressure and volume, proper trade waste drainage that many older buildings were never fitted out for, and in many cases a dedicated hot water system sized for continuous commercial use rather than the intermittent use of a household. Dryers, particularly gas dryers, need either a gas connection with sufficient capacity or an electrical supply upgraded well beyond typical retail tenancy allowances, along with proper ducted external venting.

It is common for older strip-shop or converted-retail buildings to have none of this in place, which means the fit-out cost is not just buying machines, it is paying to bring the site’s underlying services up to a standard the building was never designed for. This can include upgrading the electrical switchboard and supply capacity, installing new gas lines, adding trade waste pre-treatment if required by the local water authority, and in some cases structural work to run new ducting or plumbing through walls, floors or ceilings that were not built with any of this in mind.

Metering is a second issue that is just as easy to overlook. In a multi-tenancy building or shopping centre, water and electricity may be supplied through a shared meter with costs apportioned by the landlord or centre management using a formula that may or may not reflect actual laundromat usage. A laundromat can easily use several times the water and power of a comparable-sized retail tenancy, and if the site is on a shared or estimated allocation rather than its own dedicated meter, the operator can end up subsidising other tenants’ usage, or facing a dispute later when the true consumption becomes obvious.

Before committing to a site, a buyer should confirm, in writing, the exact water pressure and supply size, drainage and trade waste arrangements, gas availability and capacity if relevant, electrical supply capacity and whether an upgrade is needed, and how each utility is metered and billed. Any assumption made here without direct confirmation from the relevant authority or a qualified trade professional is an assumption that can turn a promising site into a very expensive fit-out, or an ongoing utility cost the original numbers never accounted for.