Method for the wet treatment of laundry items

Abstract

Laundry items washed and, if necessary, aftertreated in the tunnel washing machine (10) are, upon leaving the tunnel washing machine (10), freed from a portion of the liquid clinging to them (bound liquor) in a hydroextraction press (21). The remaining portion of the bound liquor is removed from the laundry items by subsequent drying, a process which consumes much time and energy. The invention proposes to treat the laundry items in a last treatment zone of the tunnel washing machine (10) with a liquid which has a higher temperature than the liquid of the preceding treatment zone. As a result, the liquid of the bound liquor has a higher temperature. This makes it possible to remove a greater portion of the bound liquor from the laundry items in the hydroextraction press (21), so that the laundry items leaving the hydroextraction press (21) have only a slight residual moisture which still has to be removed by drying. This shortens the drying process and above all requires less energy.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.