OT: hot and bothered by my dryer vent!

RRP

Recently my wife had complained that our clothes dryer located in the basement wasn't drying like it use to so she would run it a second cycle. I went down and found it was on "air dry" only so I changed it to heat and thought I had solved the problem. Well yesterday she reported the same problem was occurring so I went outside to see if the vent was open and letting out hot moist air. NOPE not one bit!

Making this a shorter story now...today I have replaced the outside vent/door plus 6 feet of flexible all aluminum 4" vent pipe and 2 elbows, plus reamed out 8 feet of vertical rigid vent pipe that is hidden behind drywall. I was aghast at the clogs of compacted link in those pipes! Guess we were blessed that our home hasn't burnt down, huh?

I don't mean to scare anyone but I had enclosed all this 26 years ago when I finished the laundry room. Being just the two of us we only run like 4 loads every month. Just saying that "iffin" you run many more loads and have any similar set up through the walls and closed ceiling space (which I failed to tell about) you MIGHT want to think about my warning here.

fishlessman

mines a straight shot venting down into the basement, i aint wasting that heat :laugh:

Photo Egg

I have seen write ups about the dryer sheets creating most of this problem.
It makes the lint stick to everything. They say you need to clean out the air vents inside your dryer as well. This is where the fire would most likely start.
I'm due for a cleaning as well.

RRP

Darian - I just bought a couple of those dryer brushes this morning. While my wife hasn't used those sheets for years I was amazed how tightly attached the lint was to the walls of all the pieces I replaced. It wasn't worth my time and effort to scrape them clean - just pitched them!

BigBadger

We have to regularly remove the lint buildup from the dryer vent opening as it will slow the air flow down very quickly if we don't. Don't know why the birds don't take more of it for nests.......

Carolina Q

maybe that's what's wrong with mine. takes FOREVER to dry stuff, yet the heat is there. will check it out. thanks!

stike

If you can eliminate all flexible hose you'll be ahead of the game. And anything more than two elbows is problematic too.

I cheaped out when we installed ours maybe ten years ago, and ran semi-rigid duct. We got a new W/D a few months ago and I converted to rigid, and I threw out enough trapped lint from that flexible stuff to have made a sweater for Fidel.

Fidel

cardigan or pullover? cable knit?

Dimple's Mom

We had a vent fire in our dryer last fall. Luckily we were home at the time. (After a dishwasher fire a number of years ago, we quit running appliances when we are not at home. We don't even run them at night when we're sleeping.)

A previous owner had done a slight 'redo' of some of the venting and it wasn't to code. The firemen pulled out wads of disgusting stuff. It was all damp and wet too. The firemen said even tho it wasn't supposed to be wet, it's what saved us from a full blown house fire.

Needless to say, we hired someone to come in and redo the venting so it would be to code and also easier for us to access to clean out.

Darian - I've never used those dryer sheets. My husband is fanatic about cleaning out the lint trap but I had been complaining for at least 2 years that the dryer wasn't working properly. It would take like 6 hours to dry a load of towels. No kidding. After the vent fire and the visit from the fire department, I didn't even have to say "I told you so."

Stike/Fidel - :laugh:

stike

you are right. it doesn't help being inspecific, because some sweaters take more material than others.

let's just say you could have made a mid-sized (say 12'x12') tarpaulin out of it.

Fidel

I remember when this place used to be much more friendly

RRP

Turns out that even after my effort what really was wrong was that dryer had lost the auxillary motor which powered the unit to push air, heat and lint out of the dryer and up and out of the dryer! Though the 240v heating element was working fine BUT in an overtime mode we were far more at risk than I thought. I think our next utility bill will be a gang buster one as Pat ran that old dryer 4 to 5 times to get each load dry!

Solution...new Maytag dryer and washer while we were at it!

FlaPoolman

Ron, most appliances nowadays have become disposables, well except for the highend ones I do a lot of my own troubleshooting and with what the replacement parts cost you better make sure you need it before you swap it out.

Little Steven

Ron,

Did you replace the dryer? The newer ones are more efficient and they have airflow sensors so that can't happen. Very dangerous situation there!

Steve

stike

Four to five times to dry a load and you guys didn't think something was wrong?
Bankers have more money than sense! :laugh: