Holiday let linen: hire or buy, and how many sets to keep for each bed

A common holiday let linen mistake is keeping two sets per bed, one on and one spare, and trusting the laundry to keep up. With only one spare, the used set has to be washed, dried and back on the shelf before the next changeover, so a slow laundry or a wet week leaves a bed with nothing clean to go on. Below you'll find how to decide whether to hire or buy linen, a stock rule for every bed and bathroom, a worked example for a two-bedroom let, and the laundry, storage and replacement habits that keep linen from holding up a changeover.

Hiring linen or buying your own

Weigh four things before you choose: how much laundry you can handle, where the stock will live, how long the gaps between bookings are, and how much say you want over what guests sleep on. Take them in that order, so the practical limits come before the preferences.

Start with laundry capacity. Owning linen means every set is washed, dried and folded somewhere: by you, by whoever does the changeover, or by a laundry you pay. Name that person for your busiest week, not a quiet one. With holiday let linen hire, the washing moves to the service under whatever terms it offers. The questions in the next section therefore matter more than the service's own description of itself.

Storage comes next. Owned stock needs a cupboard for every set you hold, plus somewhere to dry things when the line is out of use. Hired stock takes room too. Ask how much arrives with each delivery and how long used bags wait for collection, then measure your space against those answers.

Then test the gaps. Write down your shortest usual gap between bookings and check your preferred system against it. For hire, confirm that delivery and collection days line up with your changeover days before you build a season around them.

Finally, decide how much control you want. Buying lets you choose the fabric, colour and weight, and keep them consistent from one season to the next. Hiring means accepting the service's range and finish. Pick the model that fits your laundry, storage and calendar, and review it after your first busy season.

Questions to ask a linen hire service

Before you build changeovers around a hire service, put these questions to it and get the answers in writing. Each one covers a point where a delivery problem could leave a bed unmade.

• Which days do you deliver and collect, and do those days fit my usual changeover days?
• What comes in each set: fitted sheets, flat sheets, duvet covers, pillowcases and towels? Are duvets and pillows included, or do I supply them? Do you wash, dry and iron everything you supply?
• Is there a minimum order, and does it apply per delivery or per week?
• How much notice do you need to change an order, add an extra delivery or pause the service in a quiet month?
• What do you charge for stained, torn or missing items, how do you decide which marks count, and how are used items counted when you collect them?
• What happens if a delivery is missed or arrives short? Is there a backup delivery, and who tells me when something has gone wrong?

Press hardest on the missed-delivery answer. If the service has no backup arrangement, keep some owned sets in reserve as well, and add their cost, washing and storage to the comparison below.

Hired and owned linen side by side

The table sets out who carries each job under the two models. Read the Hired column as a starting point for your conversation with a service, since terms differ between services and the answers to the questions above decide the detail. The cost row lists what to count rather than amounts.

Whichever model you choose, record the spending as it happens, so a season of hire can be weighed against a season of owning on your own figures. For a simple way to keep linen purchases and laundry spending with the rest of the records, see the bookkeeping system for holiday lets.

How many sets of bed linen per bed

Keep three complete sets for every bed: one on the bed, one in the wash and one clean in the cupboard. Treat three as the starting point, then adjust once you know how your bookings fall.

At a changeover, the beds are stripped, the clean set from the cupboard goes on, and the used set goes into the wash. The set washed at the previous changeover, now dry and folded, takes its place on the shelf. A clean set is ready before it is needed, which gives you a buffer if the laundry comes back late or a pillowcase is marked. It is a buffer, not a guarantee: two delays in a row can still leave a bed short.

With two sets, every set that comes off a bed must be back from the wash, dry and in the cupboard before the next changeover. That works while every gap between bookings is longer than your laundry time, and fails the first week it isn't.

Count beds, not bedrooms. A twin room holds two beds and takes two sets of everything, and any sofa bed the listing offers counts too.

Add a fourth set in four situations. The first is same-day changeovers, where checkout and check-in fall on one date. The second is an off-site laundry whose return time is longer than your shortest gap between bookings, so the third set is still away when you reach for it. The third is winter drying problems, where washing done at the property is not dry before the next arrival. The fourth is a property a long way from wherever the washing is done, where a forgotten or damp set means a return trip. If any of these describes your let, buy the fourth set before the busy weeks start.

Towels, bath mats and tea towels

Towel stock runs on a different unit from bedding: beds drive the sheet count, and guests drive the towel count. Start by deciding what one guest's towel set is, for example a bath towel and a hand towel. Make sure the listing describes the same set, so the stock you hold matches the promise guests read.

Then apply the three-set rotation: three of those towel sets for every guest the listing sleeps. Use maximum occupancy rather than your typical booking, so a full house is covered from the cupboard rather than from a rushed wash. If any of the fourth-set situations in the previous section applies to your let, add a fourth towel set per guest at the same time as the fourth bedding set.

Three items sit outside the per-guest sum, and each follows its own unit. Bath mats go by bathroom: decide how many each bathroom or shower room uses per stay, then hold enough to keep the rotation going. Tea towels go by stay: decide how many you put out each time and plan stock on the same rotation. Pool or beach towels go by promise: include them only if the listing offers them, and set the count from what the listing says guests receive.

Give each of these its own line in your stock record, so a missing bath mat shows up in the count rather than at check-in.

Duvets, pillows and mattress protectors

A protector goes on every mattress and every pillow before any sheet or pillowcase. It comes off with the sheets at each changeover, so whoever does the changeover can look at what lies underneath before the bed is made up again.

The next layer, the duvets and pillows themselves, needs spares. Keep a spare duvet and spare pillows for each bed size you use, along with spare protectors, and set the quantities by your bed sizes and how often items come out of use at your let. When a duvet or pillow is marked, swap in the spare during the changeover and deal with the marked item afterwards, so the bed stays in use.

Wash duvets, pillows and protectors between seasons, and whenever one is marked, following the care label on each item. A quiet week suits the seasonal round: put the spares on the beds while the main items are away. Before the first wash is due, check the care labels and your machine's instructions to see whether your duvet sizes can be washed at home. If they cannot, ask a local laundry whether it takes duvets and how long it keeps them, and plan the round around its answer.

Look over each item when it comes out, and put anything that no longer looks or feels right for a guest's bed on the replacement list.

An example stock list for a two-bedroom let

The numbers below are an example, not a standard. They describe one imagined let: a double room with one double bed and a twin room with two single beds, sleeping four guests and served by one bathroom. Each count applies the three-set rotation, with its assumption beside it, so you can swap in your own.

Double room, one double bed: 3 double fitted sheets and 3 double duvet covers, one of each per set. Pillowcases: 12, assuming two guests with two pillows each, so four pillows on the bed and three sets of four cases.

Twin room, two single beds: 6 single fitted sheets and 6 single duvet covers, three sets for each bed. Pillowcases: 12, assuming one guest per bed with two pillows each, so three sets of two cases for each bed.

Towels for four guests: 12 bath towels and 12 hand towels, assuming the listing promises each guest one of each per stay. Bath mats and tea towels are left out, since they follow your own per-bathroom and per-stay decisions.

Add flat sheets if you use them. The holiday let linen calculator does the sums for your own beds, guests and bathrooms. With a fourth set, every count rises by a third, so 12 pillowcases in a room becomes 16 and 12 bath towels becomes 16. Change the bed sizes, pillows per guest or towel promise and every total moves, so recalculate for your own let rather than copying these figures.

Washing at home or sending it out

Measure what home washing involves for your let before choosing. At the next changeover, note how long the linen takes from stripped beds to complete sets back on the shelf: washing, drying, folding and, if you iron duvet covers and pillowcases, pressing. Set that figure against your shortest gap between bookings and the time available to whoever does the laundry. If the two do not fit, you have your answer before a busy month gives it to you.

Then plan for the worst drying conditions you expect rather than the best. Work out where one changeover's bedding and towels will dry when the line is out of use: a tumble dryer, heated indoor space or a laundry. If none of those is available in the weeks you need it, send those loads out or keep the fourth set described earlier.

A local laundry can take on some or all of the work, but confirm what it covers rather than assuming. Ask whether it washes, dries, irons and folds; whether it collects and delivers or you drop off and pick up; and how long it takes to return a load. Set that return time against your shortest gap, the same test used for the fourth set.

A split arrangement is another option: wash towels at home and send the bedding out, or the reverse. Base the split on your measured times and the laundry's answers rather than on a guess.

Compare the laundry work with the other hours self-managing takes in what self-managing a holiday let costs you in time.

Linen that survives hot washes

Read the care label before you buy, not after. Choose items whose care instructions suit how you, whoever does the changeover or your laundry will wash them. Check the highest wash temperature on each label, and buy only items rated for the temperature you or your laundry will use. Keep a note of those instructions with your stock records.

Choose plain white for every set, so there is one colour to buy and reorder. Check the labels before washing white items from different ranges together, as their care instructions may differ.

Percale and sateen are the two weaves you will meet most often: percale feels crisp and matt, and sateen feels smoother with a slight sheen. Order one item of each, wash it the way your sets will be washed, and sleep on it, then keep your choice across every set.

Buy matching sizes in bulk from one range, and note the range name, sizes and supplier, so later top-ups match what is already on the shelf.

When something is past use, decide between replacing one item and replacing the set. Replace a single item when one piece is torn, badly marked or lost and the rest of its set is in good order: buy the same item in the same range and size, if it is still sold. Replace the whole set when several pieces look tired at once, or when the range is no longer sold and a substitute would not match. Keep the old set's usable pieces as spares rather than mixing them into other sets.

Storing complete sets in the linen cupboard

The first thing you reach in the cupboard should be bedding bundles, each one a complete set. To make a bundle, fold the fitted sheet, the duvet cover and all but one pillowcase, then tuck them inside that last pillowcase. Whoever makes up the beds picks up one bundle and has everything for that bed, with no hunt for a matching pillowcase.

Give each bed size its own shelf or section, with any king or sofa bed in its own spot, so the right size is easy to find. Towels sit beside the bedding in their own pile, with bath mats and tea towels alongside.

Put newly bought stock at the back of each section and bring older sets forward, so every set takes its turn in the rotation. Keep the spare duvets, pillows and protectors on a separate shelf, within easy reach mid-changeover.

Keep the cupboard floor and doorway clear of used linen. Bag it straight from the bed and leave the bags by the front door, in the car or at the hire collection point, so used and clean sets never share the cupboard.

Stained, damaged or missing items

Work through problem items in the order they turn up. At the bed, check each item as it comes off. If one is stained or torn, photograph it before it goes anywhere near the wash, note the date, the booking and which set it belongs to, then take it out of the rotation. If something is missing, note the same details and check the rest of the property before you count it as lost.

Later that day, decide whether the item can be cleaned or repaired, or goes on the replacement list. For replacement, follow the single-item or whole-set approach under choosing linen above. If a hire service supplied the item, report it under the service's terms rather than throwing it away.

If you plan to raise guest damage with Airbnb, keep the deadline in mind: hosts file a reimbursement request in the Resolution Center within 14 days of the guest's checkout, as Airbnb's help page sets out. Your photographs and notes from the bed are the record you will draw on.

Over the season, the running record shows whether the same bed or the same kind of mark keeps coming up. Some marks point to a job bigger than a changeover, such as a stained headboard or a mattress marked beneath a protector. Keep periodic room-by-room jobs on a separate schedule using the holiday let deep-clean checklist.

When someone else does the changeover

Settle linen roles before the first shared changeover, by name or by role, and write them down. Four jobs need an owner: stripping the beds, bagging used linen, counting sets out and back, and making up the beds. One person can hold all four, as long as each job has a name beside it, so no one assumes someone else has done the count.

Agree who takes the bagged linen to the place set out in the storage section above, and when. Then agree how shortfalls are reported. Ask whoever does the changeover to message you on the day with anything missing or marked, rather than waiting for the next visit. The sooner you hear about a missing pillowcase, the more time you have to replace it, and on a same-day changeover one can come from the spare set in the cupboard. Agree, too, who photographs and notes marked items, so the record described above reaches you.

For a shared routine, use the guide to coordinating changeover help to agree what gets done and recorded by each person.

Counting your linen before the next booking

Before your next booking, work through these:

• Count every sheet, duvet cover, pillowcase, towel, bath mat and tea towel, sorted by bed size and type.
• Check duvets, pillows and protectors, including the spares, and move anything past use to the replacement list.
• Set the number of sets you will hold for each bed: three to start, or four if any of the fourth-set situations applies.
• Buy or order whatever closes the gap between your count and that number, matching the range already on the shelf.
• Add linen checks to your changeover routine: sets counted out and back, and marked items pulled and recorded.

Add a linen count to the changeover checklist so whoever prepares the beds checks stock as part of the handover.