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We moved into our brand new home in November, 2002. We have cleaned the dryer vent exactly once. Yesterday. I'm not sure why, but a couple weeks ago I started obsessing about cleaning the dryer vent. My husband, a fairly handy guy, agreed to get it done soon.
Yesterday, in fact! He crawled under our house to see what the project entailed, thinking he'd replace the existing vent tubing with something new. Guess what? We have a hard aluminum vent pipe system (which is probably good). Instead of replacing it, he decided to clean it and headed to the store for supplies, a dryer vent cleaning system.
He got back home, crawled under the house -- again -- and got to work. I chose not to follow him. He described the situation as serious, our 4-inch diameter pipe had filled with lint so the opening was only about 2-inches in diameter (a 75% reduction in air flow). No wonder our jeans and towels took two hours or more to dry!
I did head into the laundry room to see how the pipe opening looked (not nearly as bad as the horizontal pipe under the house!)
Here's the before:
Here's the after:
I did a little digging and discovered that more than 50% of all appliance started home fires begin with the dryer. Situations like ours, with clogged venting trigger dryers to overheat. That overheating leads to sparks and fire. Most of them are contained to damage only the dryer and its contents, but hundreds of people are injured every year. About 15 people each year die from preventable dryer and dryer vent fires.
It took my husband about an hour to clean our dryer vent once he got started. He plans to make this an annual spring cleaning job and estimates it will only take 15-20 minutes. That time translates to peace of mind and energy savings! (We dried a load of jeans last night in only 50 minutes once he was done!)
This isn't my usual post, I know, but I hope you find the information useful.
Blessings!
10 comments:
Cleaning the dryer vent IS really important. However, the location of our dryer calls for a professional. Our dryer is on the 2nd floor, so the vent travels to the basement, and then out the back of the house, about 30 more feet. Horrible!
I know. In the "old days" laundry was located in convenient areas, usually in the basement. The price we pay for conveniently accessible laundry rooms is well... the price we pay! Glad you get yours cleaned :)
I am a little paranoid about fire so we check ours fairly often a few times a year. Some people don't realize this needs to be done good for you for writing about this!!
Yeah, I learned this 3 years ago when I dropped my keys, had to move the dryer and saw my walls were fuzzy. The dryer burned out the next day :)
Mrsmomx6, what a bummer! At least your house didn't catch fire!!!
This is important information. So many house fires occur because this isn't cleaned often or ever.
It can also cause premature 'death' of your dryer!
Thanks for posting on how to do it!
I let it build up a little too much sometimes, doing a few loads without changing the lint thing. I never leave the house though with the dryer on...never!
Eew...that really makes you think! I've heard of these types of fires before, and am lucky that my tube is short! Thanks for the info!
Karen!!! I gasped when I first read this...yes yes yes please clean the dryer vent every year! I'm so glad you didn't have a fire sooooo scary! God was must have been whispering in your ear about that dryer vent lol! The good news is next year it shouldn't take very long to clean it!
Thanks, Becky. He stopped whispering I think and started screaming!!!!
It's not just the vent screen in the dryer, people. Clean the vent pipe that takes all that hot air outside! :)
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