Time to Clean Your Dryer Ducts – Prevent Fires
Once the weather turns cold and the heat kicks on, your home starts to get dry and static electricity arrives once again. This minor nuisance that causes siblings to shock each other for fun can actually be dangerous if it ignites lint that has built up in or around your dryer.
Why you should clean out your dryer ductwork:
According to The Consumer Product Safety Commission, ( CPSC ), annually there are tens of thousands of Dryer Fires leading to many injuries or death, due to dryer exhaust duct fires. You should clean your dryer hose and around it once a year, and inspect the vent and hose for any blockages at least every 6 months.
You could pay a professional to clean your dryer ductwork, but the price could be anywhere from $65.00 to $150.00! Ummm — no thanks — I’ll keep my money and do this myself. It only takes about 15 – 20 minutes to do and it is easy! As long as your ductwork is fairly accessible, you can handle this!
If your dryer exhaust hose tube is longer than 10′ this may be a bit more difficult. And if it is longer than 10′, did you know that your dryer may be working extra hard to dry your clothes? Worse yet is if you have a long tube that goes up into the attic (or the eaves) and then out the roof. The warm moist air from the dryer enters the cold attic, and condensation forms in the exhaust tube. Do you know where this little story is going? Well, at first your dryer can’t dry as quickly because the tube is blocked by water. Eventually it will fill with enough water to cause the exhaust tube to split and guess where all that water goes? Through your ceiling, that is where! Trust me on this one, it happened to us in our old house.
So, why don’t you sit back down and let me give you a little tutorial on cleaning out your dryer exhaust ductwork.
Instructions:
Start by unplugging your dryer and turn off the gas if you have a gas dryer.
Remove your lint trap and remove any lint from the screen.
Using a brush (designed for cleaning out the coils under your fridge) bend the brush and run it inside the lint trap. Then follow up by using a shop vac or vacuum to suck up any lint and dirt loosened by the brush.
Pull the dryer away from the wall and disconnect the exhaust duct tube from the wall and the dryer. There are normally two kinds of hose clamps holding the tube to the dryer and wall port. The first is a ring with two prongs. Simply squeeze the prongs toward one another to loosen the clamp.
The second type of hose clamp requires a screwdriver to loosen the bolt attached to the clamp.
Slide the exhaust tube off the dryer and the port (hole in the wall.)
Use your vacuum to clean out both the dryer and wall ports.
Then use the vacuum to clean out the dryer exhaust tube.
If you have an older style vinyl tube, it is important that you replace it with a metal one. The vinyl and foil ones are fire hazards. Also, if you can’t get your tube clean, go ahead and replace it.
If your tube is long or difficult to clean out, you may want to purchase a hose brush like this one:
Amazon.com: Brushtech B68C 10-Feet Long Dryer Vent Duct Cleaning Brush: Home & Garden. (affiliate link)
While you have the dryer pulled out, vacuum off the back of the dryer, the washer, and the wall behind both. Eliminate as much lint as possible. A clean laundry room is safer than a lint covered one.
Re-attach the dryer tube to the wall and the dryer.
Gently push the dryer back towards the wall being careful not to crush the tube.
Locate your exterior dryer vent.
If you can reach the exterior vent, go ahead and clean it out also. Make sure the vent closes properly when the dryer isn’t running.Otherwise you may get birds, rodents or bugs in your vent. I don’t think I need to tell you that they won’t be helping your dryer’s efficiency!
And that is it?! That was easy wasn’t it. Be sure to keep your home and family safe by cleaning your dryer exhaust ductwork yearly.
Update: I wanted to let y’all know that the flex foil pipe shown in this tutorial is FLAMMABLE! Luckily I found this out before we had a fire.
Read about installing semi-rigid non-combustible duct in this easy tutorial!
You might also like:
Learn how to keep your HE Washer Clean like the day it was delivered!
DIY Laundry Detergent & Miracle Stain Remover
I know this is an older post but so cool to find. I’ll be checking mine tomorrow I don’t think the outside vent has a screen on it because the lint if not in check will be on the lawn YIKES! I’ll be updating that.
Another thing to do to get a better suction on the vent is once you have the hose in the vent in the wall, put duct tape around the pipe and opening to seal the host in there. This will give it much more suction. Once finished just take the tape off…
Excellent idea! Thanks for your tip.
I appreciate all your helpful posts. Thus one could actually save lives.
An electrician told me once that he would NEVER leave his house with the dryer running, something I used to do all the time, but he felt it was dangerous, even with clean vents ducts.
Keep up the good work.
Barbara, I agree with your Electrician. I don’t run mine while I’m away either! Okay, I lie, I’ve done it maybe a handful of times if I REALLY need to get the next load in. BUT, I NEVER leave my dog alone in the house with the dryer running because I’d never forgive myself if a fire started and he couldn’t get out ;-(
This is so funny…I just cleaned mine for the very first time night before last. It was a much bigger mess than I though it would be. Good thing I had already declared war on cleaning out and reorganizing my utility room..he!he! One of the buildings in our complex burnt down this year because of this issue. One person died. So please take heed!
Thanks so much for this post. I’ve known that this is important, but I’ve had no clue how to do it. This kind & the how to use a tool posts are my favorite. (I’m a single mom who has four brothers and a dad and an ex-husband — who while we were married insisted on doing all the “manly” stuff — and the mom who insisted I only learn stuff like sewing and home-ec … Pretty hopeless.) It’s been so nice to learn how to do a lot of these things for myself. Better still to have the confidence of knowing that I can do them, that they are easier than I expect them to be, and that I can teach my daughters some of these basic skills that they may or may not need to know, but may enjoy knowing how to do anyway.
Thanks again!!
Thank you so much for another detailed explanation/how-to. Your tips are so valuable and motivating for jobs that we typically put off. I appreciate your blog so much. Thanks!
Hi Brittany-
Funny I just did this. My dryer was really getting hot and then I remembered that I had to clean all the lint out of the ducts. What a huge difference it made.
Ooooo, Diane it scares me to think about that. Did you mean your dryer wasn’t getting hot enough. Or the motor was getting hot?
I think I’m good about cleaning my dryer vent and hose. But thanks for the reminder. I’m sure it won’t hurt to do it again.
Never hurts to be cautious. Thanks for your comment.
I would recommend 101lintbusters I have heard a lot of good reports about them
Thank you! I think I will tackle this over the weekend. Hooray for shopvacs, right? This will motivate me to get crackin’ on my laundry room re-do.
Good for you! Thanks for your comment.
I (unfortunately) had one of those homes that had the dryer vent hit the wall, do a 90 degree turn, head up to the attic, do a 45 degree angle, then up and out of the roof. It was over 18 feet long!!! How is that NOT against fire code? My awesome dryer went from being able to dry a load of jeans in less than 50 minutes to it taking almost 3 hours for the same load. I had to routinely clean out the vent every 3 months. IT SUCKED! It is now on my list of deal breakers when buying a house.
Erin, can you get a handyman out to look at re-routing it? That is what we did. We actually had it vented down through the floor out out the soffit over the front door. Not ideal, but it really improved the performance. We did have to vacuum the front door every few months though.
We need to reroute ours too. It also goes through the attic and out the roof, probably well over 18 feet long! We also have a front-load washer and dryer and they are stacked, so I have to pull both units out to get behind them. Not fun, and they are very heavy.
Christy, I remember watching a handyman who re-routed our dryer hose when I was 8 mos. pregnant. He couldn’t get the hose back on and it was “KILLING” me to watch. I wanted to jump back there and just do it, but sadly I wouldn’t fit back there anyway I turned. LOL!
Twice a year, i use the leaf blower into the long ducting to blow everything out. Has done ok for years
That is what we do also. It gets really loud in the house but it really works well.
If you have a gasoline powered leaf blower please be careful of carbon monoxide in your home!! be very careful to ventilate well.
The code for dryer vents states 25 feet is the maximum length of venting allowed. This is the length the maximum length a dryer can force air. You subtract 5 feet for each 90 degree turn and 2.5 feet for each 45 degree turn. Using this method you can calculate the maximum length of vent for your dryer vent run.
Peter, good information to know, thanks for your comment.
Good knowledge…
I have know homes that have had fires because of dryer lint. Good tips.
Great post. I need to do this!
Thank you for this tip! In addition to cleaning our dryer vent, I need to seal around the exterior vent. The gap between the vent and the hole in the wall/siding is too big to caulk. What is the best way to do this? Thanks! Love all the tips and projects on your blog!
spray foam insulation is my suggestion.
Good suggestion Erin 😉
Angela, use Great Stuff expanding foam to seal it. While you have the can out, look under all your sinks and seal the holes around the water pipes coming in your home. That is where a lot of the creepy crawlies get in 😉
Brittany
thanks Brittany for reminding me, I’ll have that on my weekend to do list!
This is a great tip. I have been using a professional to clean the dryer ductwork as it is vented through a crawlspace…initially it was not or had been disconnected and was venting into the crawlspace and could have been a fire hazard (dryer was getting very hot). Amazing blue wall, btw!
I had a “professional” come and clean out the long hose running from my dryer…a few months later my dryer was not drying my clothes in a timely manner so i called Sears. The Sears technician opened up the drying and around the moter it was packed with lint. He said it was a definite fire hazard. Frightening to learn that when you think someone knows what they are doing does not….he put my entire family at risk.
I need to do this myself twice a year to make sure it gets done correctly. Thanks for the advise all