This guide will teach you everything about doing laundry in residence—from loading your laundry card to taking things out of the dryer, we’ve got you covered!

Whether the pile of dirty clothes is making it difficult to see the floor, or if your towels are just starting to smell a bit funky, it’s important to know how to do your laundry while living in residence.

For some, living in residence may be the first time you have been responsible for doing your own laundry, and making an effort to have clean clothes, bedding, and towels is important in maintaining good hygiene and an overall healthy lifestyle.

Follow these steps to make doing your laundry in residence easy!

Load Your Laundry Card

1. There are two ways to load money onto your laundry card—either by visiting a reload kiosk (located at Mary E. Keyes and Commons/Woodstock ) using cash, credit, or debit cards, or online using credit or debit cards.
2. Follow the directions as indicated on the website. Enter the last 6 digits of the number printed on the back of your laundry card. For example, Card # 0215641, please enter 215641.
3. Enter your four-digit site code – McMaster Site Code is 3467.
4. Select Eastern Region.
5. Click on Create My Account and continue to register your payment card.
6. Using the pin code provided to you, visit the Value Code Kiosk, located in the laundry room of all residences.
7. Insert your laundry card and enter the amount of value purchased. This amount purchased will now be added to your card. Make sure to use the address of your residence to register your card.

Do Your Laundry

Once your card is loaded, doing laundry in residence is easy! Simply load the machine you want to use with your items and detergent products, close the door and hold your laundry card to the card reader on the machine.

For best results, sort your items into whites and darks, and use just half a cap of detergent for a regular size load (Tip: check out detergent pods to eliminate the guesswork!). Your card balance will be displayed on the machine following this step. Make sure to keep track of your laundry card, as it cannot be replaced or refunded if lost!

Doing laundry in residence can be intimidating but once you get the hang of it you should have no problems. A load of laundry will take up to 1.5 hours to complete, so before you head down grab a textbook and a snack to get some studying in, as you don’t want to leave your stuff unattended.