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Clean your dryer vent!

Started by johncinquo, January 25, 2008, 04:29:28 PM

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johncinquo

I was reading the chimney cleaning thread and remembered I wanted to bring this up back on January 1. You should remember to clean out your dryer vent at least once a year.  More house fires are started by a plugged dryer vent than woodburning stoves.  (As told to me by several firemen)  In many modern homes the distance from the dryer to the outside has more than tripled from earlier years.   This can cause lots of back ups and places where lint can collect and become a fire hazard. 

Besides the fire hazard, your dryer efficiency goes up.  I know my dryer was taking about 55 minutes to dry a full load, after cleaning it came back down to about 40. 

Just a friendly neighborhood reminder!   8)
To be one, Ask one
Masons and Shriners

submarinesailor

Yep, nothing gets your heart racing better than a dryer fire on a submarine.  Been there, done that, way too many times!!!!!!!!!!  And it was always because some dumb *stuff didn't clean the filters before started a load.

Bruce

beenthere

Quote from: johncinquo on January 25, 2008, 04:29:28 PM
........More house fires are started by a plugged dryer vent than woodburning stoves.  (As told to me by several firemen)  .............. after cleaning it came back down to about. 


I'd have a tough time believing that...if true, there would be codes against drier vents....I think.  :)

......and after cleaning, it came back down to  ??? ::) ::)   :)
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Furby

I'm with you Beenthere and just went through this whole ordeal with someone.
Modern dryers have an over temp sensor to shut down if not venting properly due to a back up of some sort.
That would have to be in failure and then a blockage for it to catch fire.
Then your fan should melt off from the heat before fire ignites.
Lint in the vent will not be what catches on fire first, most time as it is in the system after your clothes.
Your clothes are the first thing to catch unless they are sopping wet.

This time of year the main cause of slow drying clothes is a cold stiff wind trying to come into the vent at the same time as the warm air trying to come out.
Also, a fan with some lint build up on the blades doesn't push as much air and works harder doing so.
Cleaning does indeed help that.

Tom

I still like the idea of cleaning the drier vent and hose.

SwampDonkey

I clean my vent filter every 2 or 3 loads during that wash day. My hose doesn't go outside, it goes into the basement. Why waste heat. ;D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

beenthere

I agree, and do that Tom   ;D  Makes good sense to have free flow of air out the vent. Never would have given a thought about a fire from lint in the vent.
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

Tom

Most of the problems I've heard about are the dryer hoses that are terminated beneath the house.  Lint accumulates on the ground and every joist under there.  If a fire does get started it makes it spread pretty quick.  Wildlife also likes the warm air and will even take up quarters inside of the hose.  :)

mike_van

i've got a 25' horizontal run of 4" pvc, 'cause I didn't want a hole in the roof for the vent. Last fall I pulled it all out & cleaned it after 10 years., There must have been 5 lbs. of soggy wet lint in there.  It drys a lot faster now!
I was the smartest 16 year old I ever knew.

Tom

I don't know if it's the same as a sawdust removal chute, but they say that pvc sawdust removal chutes will generate enough static electricity to set sanding dust, etc, afire with a spark.  I wonder about the pvc lint chute maybe causing a problem?  I guess it would have in ten years, and maybe being wet has something to do with it.

rebocardo

The house I was renting to own on a lease, before I left I cleaned the hoses and installed a new ext. vent cover so my land lord wouldn't have to worry about it when moving new "low income" tenants in (Plus, I painted the whole house except some ceilings and redid the floors so the house looked and smelled new). I even cleaned the furnance air filter.

The new tenants complained about not getting a "new" washer and dryer, even though they worked fine for close to three years for me and I went back once to check to make sure everything in the house was fine when they said the HVAC was not working.

Note to self: Only people that don't own a house and don't pay for the utility bills would ever try to heat a house to 90 (swear word) degrees in the fall   >:( !   

After pulling my hair trying to find what was wrong, since it worked fine while I was there that day, I found the HVAC was fine.  The safety relays kicked in so the system wouldn't overheat when it got to 90 degrees in the house. Which meant they then ran the stove with the door open so it would ...

One month after they moved in, the dryer caught "fire" from not cleaning the screen, so naturally they had to have a new dryer now ... funny how that happens. The funny thing is the owners wouldn't let me install a wood stove while I lived there even though I was buying the house and they had $6000 of mine.

So, in this case, the dryer vent did cause a fire and the stove did not.  :D

johncinquo

Sorry, 40 minutes.   :D

Hey I wouldnt have thought of it myself, a dryer is full of wet clothes, how would it catch fire...  But I guess between the heat, lint, and plugged pipes something goes wrong along the way.  I had never heard of it til I was talking with the local fire guys. 

I also think what happens is the fusable link burns out, then they put a jumper wire on it rather than repair it correctly.  Operator stupidity might add a lot to it.

I think letting the warm wet air into the house would be trouble.  IN MI we have enough humidity most of the time, with the dryer coming in we would be wet and get moldy and have icecicle hanging off all the windows. 
To be one, Ask one
Masons and Shriners

metalspinner

In our previous home, I shared my shop space with the washer/dryer in the basement. On the dryer exhaust pipe, I installed a "y" joint in the 4" PVC and added a blast gate like that found on the dust collecter.  In the winter, I would run the dryer without a load and open the gate to heat the shop.  A half drying cycle would take the chill out of the shop real quick.  I just needed to remember to re-rout the air outside before a load of clothes would get dryed. :-X
I do what the little voices in my wife's head tell me to do.

bedway

Tom,, years past when i built my wood shop and set everything up the talk then was static electricity discharges in the dust. So, naturally i ran ground wire in side all the pvc ducts. Since then there have been many tests ran and proven there is not enough static build up to cause a fire. After removeing all the wire my system works better. Hard to believe that little wire contributed to clogs starting and pluging the ducts. ,,,bedway

tsodak

My MIL had a dryer fire like that. Build up of lint in one of the pipes came loose and found it way somehow to the heating element, .... whoof.  Cost them there laudry room, but not the house.

On the heating thought. I put a ten dollar kit on mine that allows me to switch back and forth from inside to outside exhaust.  Many folks runa humidifier in the winter to keep the house comfortable, while at the same time blowing hot moist air out the wall doing laundry. When it is cold here, the RH in the house is below ten percent, when you want it at 35% for comfort. We start doing laundry and watch the humidity. Very sel;dom do we need to switch it to outside. Its amazing how good 68 and 35% humidity feels verses 68 and 5%. And, best of all it cost me a grand total of 10 bucks. Finally, a no brainer that works.

Tom

SwampDonkey

Quote from: johncinquo on January 28, 2008, 10:09:36 AM

I think letting the warm wet air into the house would be trouble.  IN MI we have enough humidity most of the time, with the dryer coming in we would be wet and get moldy and have icecicle hanging off all the windows. 

It's 10 % RH in here this winter. Any moisture is welcome.  :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

ksu_chainsaw

I had the dryer vent dumping the air into my crawl space (why waste heat?) but it caused a large problem with my furnace.  The warm, moist air with the lint in it was blowing down on top of my furnace, causing the circut board to short out every 2-3 weeks.  It is now routed outside.  At my mil's house, her dryer vent was also routed down into the crawl space, and it made a wonderful environment for TERMITES.  At least the previous homeowner paid to repair the damage. 

Just my 2 cents

Charles

Tom

I wonder if there might be a market for a "Cyclone" type separator for clothes driers, to separate the lint form the warm air.   It works for sawdust, why not lint?   Whaddya think you could get for one of them?

mike_van

I know one family that had the dryer just blowing up into the attic - Icecicles everywhere!  The only way they knew was when it started to melt, sagging a lot of the ceiling sheetrock, they thought the roof was leaking.
I was the smartest 16 year old I ever knew.

johncinquo

I dunno what that would be worth, but I once was asked to save my lint for someone!  

The Boy Scout troop was collecting lint, and the would melt parafin wax and mix it with the lint.  Poured that into cardboard egg cartons.  When it set up, they sold them as fire starters.  Would work in a emergency when wet or just to make it easier to get a fire going.  
To be one, Ask one
Masons and Shriners

SwampDonkey

If you are into birds, more specific hummingbirds, you can stuff bunches in tree branches near their feeding stations for use in their nests. My cousin gets several hummers in the summer and saves lint for them. They take it for sure, it disappears anyway. ;D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

SwampDonkey

Mine vents out into a crawl space which has a opening into the main cellar. It's been that way for 20 years.  ;D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

tim1234

Furby,

You may be right about the failures, that was second on the list.  But Washers And Dryers have accounted for a lot of house fires including 30% of the fires caused by failure to clean the dryer.

Check out this link to the National Fire Protection Agency:

http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?categoryID=283&itemID=19194&URL=Research%20&%20Reports/Fact%20sheets/Appliances/Dryers%20&%20washing%20machines

Has all the stats.

Tim
You buy a cheap tool twice...and then you're still stuck with a cheap tool!!
Husky 372XP, 455 Rancher, Echo CS300, Alaskan 30" Chainsaw Mill

ohsoloco

If you want to vent your dryer into the house, you can buy a plastic thingie for the end of the vent hose that gets filled with a little water.  The dryer exhaust  blows onto the water, and the lint sticks to it.   I just wish I could find a replacement lint filter for my dryer.  It's an old Maytag, and when looking around online, mine was no longer available.  There's a tear in my filter a couple inches long  :(

Swampdonkey, when I used to clip the fur on my parent's dog, I would spread the fur out in the back yard.  I always liked to see the birds out there picking it up, or spotting a nest lined with dog fur  :)

RSteiner

One other thing I learned about dryers is the lint filter needs to be washed every once in a while.  I didn't believe it until I saw it for myself.  Some time take your link filter brush off the lint and then run some water on to it.  Most of the time the water will sit there in a puddle and not go through the lint filter. 

There must be something in the dryer sheets that coat the lint filter and it acts line a moisture barrier.  All you have to do is wash the filter with dish soap.  All the air going out of the dryer has to pass through the filter when it is really moist and the filter will not pass water that means it will take longer to dry the clothes.

Randy
Randy

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