The answer in circulation is a single number: three sets per bed, or five, for everything. Applied as it stands, it leaves mattress protectors still in their wrapping in the attic and, in August, the cleaning team with no small towels. Hospitality has a name for this sum, the PAR level, and the serious way of doing it does not give you one number: it gives you one per item. Here is the method, with its sources, so you can apply it to your laundry and not to somebody else's.
What a PAR is, and why it is not the same as a set
One PAR is the quantity of each item you need to dress every bed and every bathroom in the property once. It is counted item by item and size by size: one PAR of fitted sheets for 90 cm beds is one fitted sheet for each 90 cm bed; one PAR of pillowcases is one for every pillow; one PAR of bath towels is one per guest space. Having 3 PAR means having three times that quantity, counting what is on the bed, in the cupboard and at the laundry.
The word "set" is no use for this sum, because every catalogue fills it with something different: fitted sheet, flat sheet and one pillowcase; fitted sheet, duvet cover and two pillowcases; or a pack with several complete changes inside. It is the most common confusion when placing an order: thinking a pack is one bed or one bathroom when it holds several. Before you compare quantities, translate everything into pieces.
The 3 from suppliers and the 5 from the manual
If you look up how many PAR to hold, you will mostly find a 3. It comes from the laundry cycle: one PAR on the beds, one being washed and one clean in the cupboard. Suppliers and laundries give it as the standard for anyone washing on their own premises, and raise it to 4 or more when the linen goes out.
Aleta Nitschke and William Frye, authors of Managing Housekeeping Operations, the housekeeping manual published by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute, start from the same 3 but do not stop there. They add one PAR of replacement stock a year, for what tears, stains or disappears, and one PAR for emergencies, for the day the laundry stops. The result: a minimum of five PAR with your own laundry, and a sixth with an outside laundry, because with a typical 48-hour turnaround there is always one PAR in transit. They also warn that some commercial laundries do not collect or deliver at weekends, and that those days have to be covered too.
The two numbers do not contradict each other: the 3 is what circulates and the 5 is what you own. The mistake is buying 3 believing it is the total.
Your laundry cycle sets the first number
The circulating part depends on how many days pass between stripping a piece off the bed and it coming back clean to the cupboard:
Circulating PAR = 1 (in use) + days until it comes back clean + 1 (in the cupboard)
| How you wash | Days until it is back | Circulating PAR |
|---|---|---|
| Your own washer and dryer, today's dirty linen is ready tomorrow | 1 | 3 |
| Outside laundry with 48-hour delivery | 2 | 4 |
| 72-hour delivery, or no weekend service | 3 | 5 |
Use your worst cycle, not your average one. If the laundry collects on Friday and delivers on Monday, that weekend your cycle is three days even if midweek it is two. And if in high season you have a departure and an arrival on the same day, the cycle that counts is August's, not November's.
The reserve: replacement and emergencies
On top of what circulates comes the reserve. The manual proposes one PAR of replacement stock a year and another for emergencies. For a hotel with its own laundry that makes sense: if the ironer breaks down, there is no other way to make up the rooms. For an apartment that can restock within days, a whole emergency PAR may be money standing still; what you need is enough to cover your worst week while the missing pieces arrive.
Replacement is worth measuring, though. A white paper from TRSA, the American textile services association, notes that a hotel can lose up to 15–20% of its inventory to premature loss or discarding. In a survey of five hotels cited in the same document, around 29% of what was put into service replaced pieces that had been lost or stolen, and around 70% replaced pieces the hotel itself had discarded. Your figure will be different; the only way to know it is to count what is left of each item when the season closes.
Why every item carries its own PAR
This is where nearly every guide fails: they give the same number for everything. But not all items are changed at the same frequency, nor do they leave circulation at the same rate. In 2012 TRSA commissioned a survey of 36 US hotels which measured how many times each item is put into service on average before it is retired:
| Item | Average servings before leaving circulation |
|---|---|
| Bath towel | 51.5 |
| Hand towel | 27.0 |
| Washcloth | 17.3 |
| Bath mat | 30.5 |
| Pillowcase | 49.1 |
| Full flat sheet | 81.6 |
| Full fitted sheet | 71.9 |
| King flat sheet | 79.7 |
| King fitted sheet | 44.7 |
These are not figures to copy: they are hotels in another country, with other sizes and other processes, and the document itself warns that they vary widely with textile quality and wash-process control. What does travel is the proportion. The small towel leaves circulation about three times sooner than the bath towel: it is the one that ends up with the make-up on it, in a suitcase, or wiping down the basin. The fitted sheet on the big bed lasts considerably less than its flat sheet. Those differences do not change what circulates, but they do change the reserve for each item.
Fitted sheets, flat sheets and pillowcases
They are changed on every departure and carry the full circulating PAR. Fitted sheets and pillowcases are among the first to be retired, so their reserve should be larger than the one for flat sheets.
Duvet covers
This is where translated guides go wrong. Some assign them a low PAR, thinking of beds where the cover does not touch the guest and is not changed with every stay. In Spain the duvet cover usually replaces the flat sheet and is changed on every departure: it carries the full PAR, exactly like a sheet. Only if you put a flat sheet underneath and change the cover less often can you lower it.
Mattress protectors and pillows
They are not changed with every stay, only when they are soiled or on your own schedule. US hospitality suppliers and laundries work with 1.25 PAR: one per bed and one spare for every four beds. It sounds like very little, but that spare is essential: without it, a stain at three in the morning leaves the bed out of service until the protector comes back washed and dry.
Duvets, bedspreads and blankets
They do not follow the cycle: one per bed. It is worth holding a few spares per building, for the same reason as the protector: a stained duvet takes time to wash and dry, and the bed will not wait.
Bath, hand and face towels
They carry the circulating PAR, counted per guest space and not per bathroom. The reserve is different for each: larger for the small ones, which are the first to disappear.
Bath mats
One per bathroom, at the circulating PAR, because it is changed on every departure.
Pool towels
Do not add them to the room towels by raising their PAR. Carry them as separate stock, counted by use at the pool and with a reserve of their own, because that is where most pieces go missing. And carry a bigger reserve for them than for room towels: pool towels get lost, stained with sun cream and chlorine, and walk off inside beach bags, so their loss rate is the highest in the cupboard. One season counting what goes out and what comes back at the pool will give you your own number.
Bed, pillow, guest space or bathroom: the right unit
- Per bed and per size: fitted sheets, flat sheets, duvet covers, protectors and duvets. A 90 cm fitted sheet is no use on a 150 cm bed, so there is really one PAR per size.
- Per pillow: pillowcases. A 150 cm bed with two pillows takes two.
- Per guest space: bath, hand and face towels. A double room uses two sets of towels even with a single bathroom.
- Per bathroom: bath mats.
Counting "sets per room" is the quickest way to end up short: a room with two 90 cm beds needs twice as many fitted sheets as one with a single 150 cm bed.
A worked example
An imagined apartment: one 150 cm bed with two pillows, two 90 cm beds with one pillow each, four guest spaces and one bathroom. Two ways of washing: your own washer and dryer (3 circulating PAR) or a laundry that delivers in 48 hours and does not work at weekends (worst cycle of three days, 5 circulating PAR).
| Item | Counted per | 1 PAR | Washing yourself | Outside laundry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 150 cm fitted sheet | bed | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| 90 cm fitted sheet | bed | 2 | 6 | 10 |
| 150 cm flat sheet or duvet cover | bed | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| 90 cm flat sheet or duvet cover | bed | 2 | 6 | 10 |
| Pillowcase | pillow | 4 | 12 | 20 |
| Bath towel | guest space | 4 | 12 | 20 |
| Hand towel | guest space | 4 | 12 | 20 |
| Face towel | guest space | 4 | 12 | 20 |
| Bath mat | bathroom | 1 | 3 | 5 |
| Mattress protector (1.25 PAR) | bed | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Duvet, bedspread or blanket | bed | 3 | 3 | 3 |
That is what circulates. On top goes the reserve: replacement for each item according to what gets retired in your season, larger for pillowcases, fitted sheets and small towels, plus whatever you need to survive a breakdown or a late delivery without cancelling a stay. In your first year you will not have your own figure; the manual's replacement PAR is a reasonable starting point, and from the second season you can adjust it item by item.
Adjust every season
- Count what is left of each item when you close, not of each set.
- Record retirements per item: worn out, stained, lost. That is next year's replacement.
- If you are always short of the same item, the problem is that item's PAR, not the total. Raise that one and leave the rest.
- If you change laundry or collection frequency, recalculate: the cycle rules.
For when to retire each item, the renewal guide sets out the signs. And if you are wondering whether to hold stock at all, the comparison between renting and buying linen explains when renting pays.