Sheets again - any help?

[Bruce Woodruff]

Our biggest and really only problem with the STR business is the sheet issue. We've tried the ones recommended the last time this thread went around with little luck. Kohls, Amazon, expensive, cheap....the last ones we bought (Amazon) were pretty pricey and advertised as 'wrinkle free' with thousands of good reviews. We washed them before using and they came unraveled the first wash. There have to be a good quality sheets out there.

We really don't want to have to iron every time either. Any favorites for you guys?

[Paul Sandhu]

Sheet, I just buy something from WalMart. But my STR tenants have pretty low standards. Sheet that was an easy question.

[John Underwood]

We get the ones at kohl's when they are one sale. They hold up well. 

[Robert Gilstrap]

@Bruce Woodruff are you not buying commercial hotel sheets? If not, you will continue to have problems. 80/20 cotton blend and they aren't cheap but they last. We buy ours from Standard textile which supplies many national hotel chains. If you want cheaper than posted prices from them join HostGPO as they have pre-negotiated pricing. Also you will have to get used to buying in bulk since sheets get much more expensive when not buying by the case.

Towels on the other hand we have begun migrating to Costco brand hospitality towels which are about what I am already paying with Standard textile but available quickly and sometimes even better quality.

[Bruce Woodruff]

Originally posted by @John Underwood:

We get the ones at kohl's when they are one sale. They hold up well. 

 That was out last try. $80 on sale for $30. Bad wrinkle problems and a thread came loose in a couple of them.....

[Michael Baum]

Hey @Bruce Woodruff, so we have been using the Kohl's Big One sheets in white. 70/30 cotton/poly blend. They have been awesome. They are going on 5 years now and still look good. They wash great, never pill and I can get any stain out of them. Plus they have top/bottom/side labels so it is easy to put them on quickly.

What you might be experiencing is the sateen weave problem. Sateen is softer, but it will pill like mad, stretch and look terrible after a few months.

The ones we use are percale weave. It is much tougher but not quite as soft. They are crisp sleeping.

Like @Robert Gilstrap said, the commercial stuff is great. Martex, Standard Textile etc. The Kohl's units are very similar to commercial brands without the huge cost. When they go on sale, the cost about $30 for queen and $35 for king. I buy one or two each time and now I have a ton of them to swap around.

Here is the link - https://www.kohls.com/product/...

Kohl's has a ton of sheet sets but these are the ones. 275 TC. People are quite whiny about the softness. I have never had a complaint. I washed ours 2x before putting them on.

Sheet washing - NEVER use bleach in the wash. Bleach binds to the body oils and make them yellow and stiff. Use Lysol Sanitizer instead. I do use bleach after washing to spot treat anything that got left behind stainwise.

There are some comments about stains not coming out, but I am guessing they don't use a premium detergent. We only use Persil and Tide. I can count on one hand the times I have had to spot bleach a stain on a sheet/pillow case.

Also, the sets only come with 2 pillowcases and they take the brunt of the wear. We bought bulk commercial pillowcases from eBay. The sellers there will break up the 144 count bundles that commercial sellers usually require you to buy into more manageable numbers. 12/24/36 etc. We have 4 pillows on each bed so extras is a good thing.

[Robert Gilstrap]

@Michael Baum  yeah I would love to test some Kohls sheets myself if for no other reason to have an emergency backup (especially in light of recent supply chain issues). I think our problems are two fold with consumer marketed sheets. 

1. We only use standard size pillows on all bed sizes so any consumer sheets they always come with king size pillow cases (depending on bed size) and those would end up going in the trash.

2. We do double sheeting on all our beds which means one fitted then a flat then the duvet, then another flat sheet much like what hotels do and of course consumer sheets never comes with two flat sheets so I'm stuck again unless I buy in major bulk and just move the sheets around to make  up a full "set" from what I bought. 

One thing I do like about commercial sheets is ours come pre-washed so no washing once they arrive and a huge thing is that commercial sheets have a tracer thread woven into the hem to quickly identify sheet size (i.e. blue thread = king, green = queen, etc.) so the housekeepers know what they have in their hands but more importantly for the staff sorting sheets when they are laundered. Sounds like a small thing but it is crazy important when you have 1,000 lbs. of sheets being washed in bulk and they have to be sorted, folded and stacked quickly.

[Michael Baum]

@Robert Gilstrap, yeah I see why you need to go a different way. I didn't really think about pillows all standard until after we did all the buying. In retrospect, I might have gone that way.

For the identifier of sheet size, I just took a sharpie and put a K and a Q on the sheet tags. I hate getting fooled. :)

[Robert Gilstrap]

@Michael Baum    Yeah I never knew about the thread thing until someone in the hotel industry showed me.  I was like "genius". These hotel folks have it down to a science! I'm in the process of opening my own "mini-laundry" facility to handle our stuff because its just turned into a MUCH bigger job than I ever expected. Essentially a rental house filled with washers and dryers and I'll staff it with someone. I'm also looking for a commercial laundry steam machine. The hotel folks showed me that pretty much they can get any stain out with about 3 different chemicals and that pressurized steam wand. 

@Michael Baumundefined

[Michael Baum]

Yeah, commercial facilities would be awesome. Do some of the commercial laundry equipment require 3 phase power?

[Joe Splitrock]

@Bruce Woodruff we got expensive sheets from Costco that were high thread count and labeled as "commercial hotel". They take forever to dry and they started pilling almost immediately. As a spare set we bought cheap ones from Walmart. They dry in a third the time and hold up great. The difference is high cotton content versus synthetics in the cheap ones. My guess is the Costco sheets are more comfortable, but we haven't had complaints about the cheap Walmart ones either. 

[Matt M.]

@Bruce Woodruff

Just use the disposable paper like at the doctors office. Hahaha

[Bruce Woodruff]

Thanks, you guys! Seems like there is no single answer....I will try Kohls again for starters....

[Paul Sandhu]

Originally posted by @Michael Baum:

@Robert Gilstrap,  I hate getting fooled. :)

We won't get fooled again.

[Tanner Sherman]

To be honest we have had the best luck with walmart sheets. We are able to get different color for each bed size, and haven't had any issues with staining or wrinkling so long as we put them right on the bed when the dryer cycle is done. I prefer to have two sets of sheets so we can put the second set on while the first is washing, plus keeping them folded between stays helps with the wrinkling as well. 

[John Bartlett]

One thing I'll tell everyone here DO NIT USE FABRIC SOFTENER, it will destroy the fabric. I learned this from hotel operators. I've been told it's 25-50 less life of the items being washed.

[Aaron Oetting]

@Paul Sandhu I use the microfiber from goodhostshop.com