What Is a Clothes Conveyor?

Anyone who has stopped in at a dry cleaner will probably be somewhat familiar with a clothes conveyor, which is a system used to organize and transport clothing along a mounted track. This motorized system will feature a track mounted to a ceiling which will allow garments hung on hangers to be attached to it via specially designed trolleys with hooks. The trolleys will move along the track, which may be circular or looped in some other way. The garments can be moved along the clothes conveyor until the user finds the garment he or she is looking for.

Larger clothes conveyor units are almost always motorized, but smaller models intended for use in home closets may be motorized or unpowered. The track is mounted in a similar fashion regardless of its location, but home closet clothes conveyor systems tend to be much smaller and simpler in terms of layout. In the home, a clothes conveyor can help maximize usable storage space while keeping garments neat, organized, and accessible. The cost of a conveyor for the home can be fairly high, however, so it is not always the most cost-effective way to stay organized.

In industrial or dry cleaning settings, the clothes conveyor may run from the back of the facility to the front; this allows workers in the back of the facility to mount or unmount garments as needed, and it allows a customer service representative in the front of the facility the ability to find and pick garments for pickup or drop-off. The garments may be tagged and organized in a specific location on the conveyor to make identification much quicker and easier for customer service representatives.

Sometimes the clothes conveyor will not be mounted to the ceiling at all, but will instead feature heavy-duty bases that support the conveyor system. These bases usually take the form of metal legs spaced out along the length of the conveyor, and they provide a stable surface when loaded or unloaded. Sometimes the legs will need to be secured to the floor for extra stability and safety; this is usually the case with larger systems that will hold a significant amount of weight. Smaller, closet-size systems probably won't need to be secured to the floor. The number and position of those legs will generally depend on the design of the conveyor system; straight conveyors will require fewer legs, while conveyors that feature curves or larger sweeps will require more legs.