No Need To Buy A New Dryer
I Didn’t Need to buy a New Clothes Dryer?
You had your clothes dryer for years, always worked fine. Dried big, wet loads well & smaller loads quick. The simple mechanism served you well. A reliable trooper doing it’s job. You kept it’s filter cleaned as soon as it built up. Consistently. Ergo, you took care of it too. Or did you? After a long life you begin noticing your dedicated machine falter. Taking longer to dry completely, sometimes two or three cycles. it’s still getting warm. It still works, just not as well. What happened? It was such an easy system! Over time you decide it must be time to buy a new dryer. You now spend a lot to replace it with a top of the line, modern system which includes a fire safety sensor and LCD screen. You’ve learned that clothes dryer fires are the biggest house fire hazard:
This makes sense; lint build up is highly flammable, all dryers have heating elements and/or ignitors which can easily enflame a slither of
lint which can catch fire in your home. Through hose or exhaust pipes near walls which can progressively catch
fire… After your new, expensive dryer is installed you see on it’s first load it shuts down. You try it again with the same, big moist laundry load fresh from your washer. Paying attention the dryer gets warm but it’s heat turns off. It’ll go on air fluff only for some time but that takes too long to dry and still turns off anyway after a short time. A code on your LCD screen then states vent clog.You call under manufacturer’s
warranty coverage. The technician arrives and disconnects the exhaust hose from the dryer. They let it run again with
hose separated. It gets warm now and doesn’t shut down. The room gets warm and humid from it’s exhaust.
Your appliance tech then drops this fact about lint blocking the dryer’s vent leading through your building’s walls to it’s outside exhaust. It’s proper to inspect that exhaust. A good percentage of people have no idea where their dryer exhausts to, especially in multi-family dwellings or large buildings. When any dryer’s hose is connected a clear airflow should be easy to feel with your hand where it exits your building (large buildings have cases of a large, long, shared exhaust riser, i.e. usually vertical piping leading to a roof). For usual exhausts if no flow or only a slight breeze can be felt or seen this indicates a blocked vent. Why? And where? You’ve cleaned that filter diligently. After your tech advises getting your vent cleaned by a professional you realize a sad if not annoying fact: You never needed to buy this new dryer… You are not
unusual; this occurs with 30% of our new-dryer-buying clients! That’s a lot… Well, it’s too late now as your old unit is gone. Longer distances to exhaust with more elbows (turns) translate to more zones for blockages to occur. Because Air Vent Medics clears, cleans & tests air flow we are contacted to clear blockages, usually from abundance of clogged lint. Related issues are crushed or bent hoses, corroded, twisted or disconnected piping, bird’s nests, rodent dens, other items from construction, even little balls, toys or items kidslikely put into accessible exhaust. If this happened to you, you shouldn’t feel foolish. Most people are simply unaware how important it always was to have dryer vents cleared and tested regularly. This is certainly not advertised much by appliance manufacturers. Never was.
How often should you have your dryer vent cleaned? Yearly is the advised average. Large groups with singlem dryers may need it bi-annualy. Notwithstanding laundromats, hotels, health clubs, salons, restaurants, schools, small laundry rooms of buildings or any excessive usage of clothes dryers. More loads equals more lint. Its best to keep em clean than to allow lint to build up. Just like your kitchen, home or car, it’s easier to keep it clean than clean a big mess later. And in the case of clothes dryers being the #1 house fire hazard, much safer. Notwithstanding your laundry loads drying faster and machines lasting longer. Vertical exhausts pose another issue, especially with low CFM (weak flow or low Cubic Feet per Minute). With more floors that lint must travel, that lowers the chance it’ll make it 100% to a roof or even get there at all.
The highest floor may exhaust fairly. But lower floors must not only climb to roof with only it’s dryer’s CFM. Lower floors also must push up all floors above it utilizing that same shared exhaust riser. With even a few floors and several connected dryers thats mostly impossible. Gravity matters. Powerful exhaust fans have are installed on roofs or within flow paths for that reason. Ergo, this article, albeit promotes dryer vent cleaning jobs of Air Vent Medics, should be explicit as 100% honest, factual support. And if this saves a home, a life or just prevents you from installing a new dryer thats unnecessary? Thats all the better!
By Jules Lupowitz, GM, Air Vent Medics, www.airventmedics.com division of Mikes Air Conditioning