Eco-Express
Stopped…read moreby at Eco-Express on July 27, 2018, for my first German public laundry experience ("Waschsalon") as my hotel did not have laundry service. Using Yelp as my guide, I walked the 1.2 km from my hotel to Eco-Express. Upon arrival at Eco-Express, which is located in a good neighborhood, I found a very clean self-serve laundry facility, with 20 washing machines but only 8 dryers. There was no attendant. All of the signage was in German, but luckily with self-explanatory diagrams that even I, as a native English speaker with no German, could understand. (Yes, it would be nice if there were English signs up, as several people came to Eco-Express while I was there, all of whom were English speakers and all of whom were trying to figure out how the laundry worked).
So how does the laundry work?
You put your clothes & detergent into the clothes washer, note the machine number, go to the central payment machine, put in money (coins or €5 or €10 bills), push the button corresponding to your washing machine, then walk back to your washing machine, select the cycle, push start. My colour wash cycle, on what I assume was the medium temperature, took 45 minutes.
If you need detergent or softener, you get it from the detergent vending machine located right beside the payment machine. Same process: you put your money into the central payment machine, push the button for either colour clothes detergent (colorwaschmittel), white clothes detergent (vollwaschmittel), or softener (weichspuler). The detergent vending machine then fills the little blue cup, you take the blue cup to your washing machine, pour the detergent into the washer machine's detergent compartment, and then return the blue cup back to the central detergent vending machine.
The dryers work the exact same way. Load the dryer, go to the central payment machine, insert your €1, push the button that corresponds to your dryer, return to your dryer, push the button for the cycle you want (there are 3 heat settings), then push start. For €1 you get 15 minutes of dryer time. Note: the laundry does not sell anti-cling or dryer sheets.
Cost for one load of laundry in the washing machine was €3.50, detergent was €.50 & dryer was €1. There is no "drop off" laundry service here. Note: washing machine is €3 per load before 10 AM. Hours of operation are 6 AM to 11 PM everyday. There are no washroom (toilet) facilities.
Overall, easy once the process is understood.
