Tell us what your towels touch, from degreaser and brake cleaner to wax, polish and fuel. Before the first pickup we confirm which towels we can take, and your quote sets the rate and the return day. We wash towels your business already owns; we don’t supply towels.
Detailing, repair and cleaning work all end the same way: with a pile of used towels and nobody on the clock to deal with them. They get rinsed in a bucket, stuffed in a drum or taken home to a washer late at night. When that routine slips, you pay twice, first in hours and then in towels that stop doing their job.
Consider a mobile detailer finishing a coating job in a client’s driveway. The buckets in the van hold glass towels, drying towels, a few stiff with compound and two that touched the wheels. They all go through the home washer at nine and the dryer on high, because the first appointment is at seven. By Friday the drying towels push water across the paint instead of soaking it up.
Consider a four-bay repair shop in Kearny Mesa. By Wednesday afternoon a tech reaches for the last clean shop towel, while the used ones sit in a drum by the parts washer, some damp with degreaser, some black with motor oil. The owner either pays a rental program for rags the shop will never own or keeps buying new boxes, because nobody has an hour to wash the old ones.
Consider a five-person crew that finishes a Mission Valley office building at 11 p.m. Their microfiber is color-coded: red for restrooms, blue for glass, green for desks. It goes home with whoever has a washer, comes back tangled with bath towels and coated in lint, and one night a red cloth ends up wiping a break-room counter.
A glass towel with a little window cleaner on it and a shop towel wet with brake cleaner are both towels, but they are different laundry. So the first conversation is about products, not pounds. You tell us what the towels touch. Before the first pickup we tell you which ones we can take, which we can’t and how to bag the rest.
Name the product, not the category. “Brake cleaner” tells us more than “chemicals,” and a photo of the label is better still.
Say how the used towels are kept between pickups: a closed metal can, an open drum or a bag in the van.
Keep towels from a spill you had to report to an agency out of the bag entirely. California’s laundering rule for shop towels doesn’t cover them.
Acceptance is confirmed for your towels before the first pickup. If a product rules some towels out, you’ll hear it before anyone drives to your door.
These rules and care points apply to any laundry that handles your towels, so use them when you talk to anyone, us included.
Guides to the federal “wipes rule” for solvent-soaked shop towels are easy to find, but that rule doesn’t apply here. The EPA’s list of states where the wipes rule is in effect shows that California hasn’t adopted it.
California’s rule is Health and Safety Code section 25144.6. Shop towels and other reusable textiles soiled with hazardous waste during commercial work are exempt from some hazardous-waste requirements, such as the shipping manifest, when no waste is added after use, no liquid drips out in storage or transport, and they weren’t used on a spill that had to be reported. The laundry has duties too. It keeps records of what it collects, keeps an emergency plan and pretreats its wastewater for metals and organics to operate without a hazardous-waste facility permit.
That is why we need your product list before we can answer. The DTSC guidance on textiles soiled with hazardous waste covers the requirements on your side, as the business that used the towels.
Oil-based paints, stains and finishes give off heat as they dry, and a pile of rags traps that heat until it can ignite, as the NFPA’s oily rag safety sheet explains. Solvents and fuel carry their own risk, because their vapor can ignite.
The U.S. Fire Administration advises keeping oily rags in airtight containers away from heat sources. A bag of towels waiting by a bay door for pickup is still a pile, so tell us how yours are stored, and never bag towels that are still wet with solvent or fuel.
The split fibers that pick up dust and water also clog easily. EPA guidance on microfiber says to wash and dry it apart from other laundry, because it pulls lint and hair off everything else, and to skip fabric softener and bleach. Microfiber makers such as Autofiber add low heat in the dryer, since high heat can melt the fibers.
Ask anyone who washes your microfiber, us included, how they handle softener, heat and cotton lint.
Text photos of the towels and the product labels to (619) 389-3206, or use the quote form. Add roughly how many towels you go through in a week.
Before the first pickup we tell you which towels we can take, any we can’t and how to bag the rest. Nothing is collected on a guess.
Tell us where the bag waits and who brings it out: a closed can by the roll-up door that the service writer carries to the van, a bag inside a detailer’s garage, or the supply closet where a night crew leaves it for the morning. Pickups run Monday to Friday, 7am to 5pm, and Saturday, 8am to 12pm. Tell us how often you need pickup; the quote confirms the schedule.
Liz and Steve Carlin run our own facility, where accepted towels go through commercial Maytag and Speed Queen washers and every load gets ArtiClean ozone. Your quote sets the return day.
Once your towels are accepted, the end of the day changes shape. The bucket goes in the bag, the bag goes by the door, and nobody is standing at a washer at ten at night.
Many searches for this work include the word rental. Under that model the supplier owns the towels, drops off clean ones and takes the dirty ones on a set route, often under a service agreement.
Freshly Folded supplies no towels. Our model is laundering: once we’ve confirmed which of your towels we can take, the ones your business already owns leave in the bag and the same towels come back. If you want a vendor to buy and replace stock for you, rental is the closer fit. Our commercial towel service page compares the two in more detail.
Which towels you send, and what’s on them.
Your weekly volume. Weigh one full bag on a bathroom scale and count the bags you fill in a week.
How often the bag needs to leave your door.
No contracts. Net-30 billing is available after the third month, and programs run from 100 to 5,000 lb a week. The same business terms appear on our pricing page.
A photo of the towels and the labels on the products they touch is enough to start. If the same business also sends aprons, uniforms or linens, our commercial laundry service covers the wider mix.
Cleaning crews and gyms often send more than cloths. Vacation rental sheets and bath towels go through our Airbnb and VRBO laundry service, and a gym’s member towels have their own page on gym towel laundry. Mention the cleaning cloths in the same quote request.
Rental, what to disclose, storage, price, timing and microfiber care.
Ask about your towelsNo. Freshly Folded launders towels a business already owns and brings the same towels back, once we have confirmed which of yours we can take. We supply no towels, so if you want a vendor to provide and replace them, a rental program is the closer fit.
We can’t say yes or no until we know exactly what is on them. Send the product names or photos of the labels, how the used towels are stored and roughly how many you go through a week. Before the first pickup we confirm which towels we can take and which we can’t. Never bag towels that are still wet with solvent or fuel.
Keep towels with oil, solvent or fuel on them in a closed metal container away from heat, and don’t let liquid collect at the bottom. Rags used with oil-based stain or finish give off heat as they dry, so never leave them balled up in a pile. Tell us how yours are stored when you ask for a quote.
Your quote reflects the towel types, your weekly volume and how often you need pickup. Weigh one full bag and count how many you fill in a week; that is enough to start. There are no contracts, and Net-30 billing is available after the third month.
Standard wash-and-fold orders are ordinarily back the next business day. For business volume your quote confirms the return day, so size the stock on your shelf to the date in your quote.
Yes, with the right handling. Microfiber should skip fabric softener and bleach, dry on low heat and be washed apart from cotton, which sheds lint into it. Ask any launderer how they handle each point. Send us your towel maker’s care instructions, and we confirm how yours would be washed before the first pickup.
New customers
On your first order. Next-day pickup and delivery across San Diego County.
$49.99 minimum order. $5.99 per pickup. First order only.
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