Navigating Circuit Laundry: Top ups, Timings and Tips

A lot of your university experience is learning how to live independently; cooking, taxes, washing up, and the dreaded laundry basket are just as important skills as what you learn in seminars- well, almost. Luckily for you, Circuit Laundry is a useful albeit sometimes confusing and problematic solution to all your washing woes. Although it may not look simple when you move in, we’ve got a guide to circuit laundry top ups, timings and tips.

There are a lot of merits to the service they offer, and in ways, it makes a lot of sense that the company is as popular as it has become. The combination of the machines and the app is useful – we are slowly becoming a society that carry and use cash far less. With contactless and apple pay, it’s not often that you’ll be carrying around loose change for the laundrette. Enter Circuit Laundry.

What’s good about Circuit?

All of the services are done through the app and online – there is a bit of a novelty about washing your socks from your phone. The wash cycles themselves are generally quite quick and efficient, and there’s a fair few to choose from. For the best results that don’t break the bank and are good for everything, stick to 40 degrees. Don’t overfill the machine either. We all want to get it done in one, but believe me when I say your clothes will not clean properly. Aside from the actual washing side of things, there are a bunch of other good things about the service: there are features on the app where you can check the availability of machines, the status of your wash cycle, and it is a bonus that there’s plenty of tips and recommendations for how to get the best results. Circuit Laundry also recently launched a regular survey to be sent to students in an endeavour to keep user experience up.

Why does it have a bad reputation?

Circuit Laundry is by no means perfect though, in fact, amongst students, it’s probably got more of a bad rep than good. The price of the service is a lot. £2.80 might not seem steep as a one-off payment, but when you think about how messy freshers can get, it will soon start to add up. Your best bet is to save a few quid by opting to dry your clothes in your flat rather than using the dryers. The temptation is real, and there are definitely times where you’d rather not have the clothes horse decorating your room, but every penny counts. Besides, it’s far better for your clothes and the planet to air dry them anyway.

Washing clothes is not ever going to be the most exciting thing you’ll do while you’re at university, and frankly, to say that Circuit Laundry will make it exciting would be a lie. The app isn’t perfect, and it does get a bad rep from students, but deep down, it is a saving grace for all of us. On those days when you had no clean clothes and had a big night to get ready for, Circuit Laundry did show up; albeit maybe a bit late and underdressed. Though it’s a pain, it’s our pain, and for that, it’s something we should be thankful for. It certainly beats having dirty clothes.