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Dryer vent cleaning


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Customer bought a new dryer and there clothes still didn't dry. Found a hole in the wall and the 90 behind the dryer for some reason with flex shoved on. The wire screen is from the goose neck on the roof which was blocked solid. This is only a 14 foot run and it should be round pipe but a lot of drywall would have to be ripped out to change it. It was really bad towards the last few feet, tried my best to stick my phone in the goose neck on the roof to get a good pic. I put the 90 back together and the drywall piece was behind the dryer too so I tried to put that back. Clothes dry in no time now, I hope they can return the new dryer or sell it to someone. I think there's about 15,000 dryer fires a year so make sure you keep your vents clean!!

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Good advice man, so true.

I was at a place with pvc as the vent, I really didn't have the knowledge or experience at the time to know what to tell the customer, but definitely don't use pvc as dryer vent

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I went over to my daughter's friend's house once to check out their dryer. Turns out that they spilled fabric softener on top and it coated the entire lint trap. Once I got everything cleaned out, and the vent was blowing out serious air, the dryer still wasn't drying. So I said "screw it" and bypassed the thermocouple. Yup, I know, bad news because it can cause a fire. But, it was only temporary until I picked up a new one. It baffled me that she'd spill fabric softener all over the joint, and not bother to clean it. That lint trap was coated from head to toe, there was so much shit caked on it that I had to bring it home and give it a serious cleaning. And I'd lay odds that it's the reason why the thermo went out...dryer probably overloaded a long time ago, and they were running it without bothering to have it checked out. Luckily I can do this type of work, that dryer was almost as good as new.

 

 

Sad fact is that most people don't know the fist thing about anything mechanical, electrical, etc., and that's why things go south for people. Our vent goes from the middle of the house to out the back wall, and it's a pretty good stretch. I don't clean it often, but I do get in there with the leaf blower and shop vac often enough that I know it's clean.

 

 

Which actually makes me think about yesterday, when I blew out under our fridge. In all honesty I've never even thought about it, but we had a water leak that I had to check out. Pulled the back off and saw just one big layer of dust. It really was just an un-Godly amount of shit in there. Pulled the air hose in and blasted the hell out of it. Made a mess in the kitchen but with the whole house fan on and a vacuum it was no problem. However, I knew in my head that the fridge could have died a long time ago with all that dust in there. Bad on me for not cleaning it before.

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That's a crazy amount of build up in there.im pretty lucky that my run isnt very long,maybe 8 feet total length from dryer to outside, makes it simple to clean. We get alot of pet hair from our dogs on our clothes.

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My dryer vent is probably 20 ft long and goes underneath the bathroom floor. It's made of flexible plastic tube reinforced with wire and it's horrible. I can't wait until I rip up the floor to put down tile so I can replace the flexi-hose.

Twice a year, I have to get out the flex brush and the drill and clean the entire thing out. If you haven't ever cleaned the inside of a clothes dryer, you'd be amazed and horrified just how much lint gets trapped inside. We actually had a small fire a few years back that luckily didn't get much past the smouldering stage, but now I clean it religiously.

Just another voice reminding people to clean out not just the vent but also the dryer itself.

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I really don't pay attention to the dry venting, we have gas and it is ported directly straight outside the wall. vent is about 2 feet long with no curves. I'd be wondering if it was a gas dryer how much carbon monoxide is being pumped into the house which is just as bad a fire issues....

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if you have any kind of ribbed dryer vent, its recommended you clean your dryer vent twice a year, the best is rigid piping, which is pretty much maintenance free,any housing inspector or code inforcer will say same. huge amount of fires are started every year because of dryer vents. if you can replace it with 4 inch rigid, do it

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5 hours ago, comp56 said:

I really don't pay attention to the dry venting, we have gas and it is ported directly straight outside the wall. vent is about 2 feet long with no curves. I'd be wondering if it was a gas dryer how much carbon monoxide is being pumped into the house which is just as bad a fire issues....

no harmful levels of carbon monoxide should be coming in house, if it is its improper install

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22 hours ago, mohawkdec said:

if you have any kind of ribbed dryer vent, its recommended you clean your dryer vent twice a year, the best is rigid piping, which is pretty much maintenance free,any housing inspector or code inforcer will say same. huge amount of fires are started every year because of dryer vents. if you can replace it with 4 inch rigid, do it

That's the only way to go, if a rigid vent has a lot of turns it still collects lint. You should clean it once a year but there's a million things we are suppose to do yearly and it never gets done. 

 

On 3/4/2016 at 0:37 PM, khariV said:

My dryer vent is probably 20 ft long and goes underneath the bathroom floor. It's made of flexible plastic tube reinforced with wire and it's horrible. I can't wait until I rip up the floor to put down tile so I can replace the flexi-hose.

Twice a year, I have to get out the flex brush and the drill and clean the entire thing out. If you haven't ever cleaned the inside of a clothes dryer, you'd be amazed and horrified just how much lint gets trapped inside. We actually had a small fire a few years back that luckily didn't get much past the smouldering stage, but now I clean it religiously.

Just another voice reminding people to clean out not just the vent but also the dryer itself.

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That sucks, that plastic junk catches on fire just by looking at it.

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On 3/4/2016 at 9:31 PM, KnarlyCarl said:

Good advice man, so true.

I was at a place with pvc as the vent, I really didn't have the knowledge or experience at the time to know what to tell the customer, but definitely don't use pvc as dryer vent

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Haha, I have seen a few done in pvc. Its smells wonderful when the dryer is on not to mention the lint sticks to the inside of the pvc from static electricity.

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Like others had mention it is very important to take apart the dryer and clean all the lint out. The easy way is to take off the panel the door is attached to so you can clean the bottom of the dryer base and motor area and blower as well. Also where the lint screen is there is a lint trap on the bottom that has to get clean out. The worst one I cleaned had 2 inchs of lint on the base of the dryer, and the lint trap and blower were packed. I filled up a 5 gallon bucket just from the dryer alone the vent was another 5 gallons 

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Luckily ours is rigid from the wall, up to the attic, and all the way to the back of the house where it vents out. Our only real spot for anything to clog is the flex at the back of the dryer, and that's a piece of cake to clean. Of course we're all talking like everyone knows to do this, but in reality most homeowners wouldn't know the difference between a screwdriver and an elephant.

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On 3/5/2016 at 6:47 PM, Kato said:

Luckily ours is rigid from the wall, up to the attic, and all the way to the back of the house where it vents out. Our only real spot for anything to clog is the flex at the back of the dryer, and that's a piece of cake to clean. Of course we're all talking like everyone knows to do this, but in reality most homeowners wouldn't know the difference between a screwdriver and an elephant.

Hey they put money in my pocket, so I hope they don't figure out an elephant is not a tool. But there's so many things you are suppose to take care of on a yearly basis if you actually did all those things it would be a full time job.

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It was scary when my dryer caught on fire this fall. The vent was clear but the insides of the Dryer were covered in lint

Woah yeah that's a butt pucker moment for sure! I actually hung a fire extinguisher close by the dryer in the insane case one actually started, but it's on an exterior wall and minimal piping directly to the outside, so the chance of it happening are slim, I know, but it's an easy thing to install. And I keep it clean from the outside, easy to get to through the backdraft damper. My wife didn't want the red clashing with the wall color so I put a white one up.

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On 3/9/2016 at 10:36 PM, DR99 said:

It was scary when my dryer caught on fire this fall. The vent was clear but the insides of the Dryer were covered in lint

That's scary. Was it a gas dryer??

 

On 3/9/2016 at 5:01 AM, KnarlyCarl said:

Woah yeah that's a butt pucker moment for sure! I actually hung a fire extinguisher close by the dryer in the insane case one actually started, but it's on an exterior wall and minimal piping directly to the outside, so the chance of it happening are slim, I know, but it's an easy thing to install. And I keep it clean from the outside, easy to get to through the backdraft damper. My wife didn't want the red clashing with the wall color so I put a white one up.

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You can never be to safe. What color was the wall..lol

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