No dramatic story, just a reminder to clean out your dryer vents. I spent $30-some bucks on a drill auger made for the purpose on Amazon and tried it out tonight. I filled a plastic grocery bag with densely packed dryer lint after getting it all hogged out.
It was easy and I wish I'd done it sooner. After seeing how plugged the line was I'm feeling lucky the house didn't burn down.
Not only the ductwork, but pull the back off the dryer every 5 years or so and clean the internal ducting out. Had problem with that a while ago, poor performance, because the turbine inlet was half blocked with lint.
Also, be sure to use an aluminum dryer vent tube, not plastic.
Thanks for the reminder I have been meaning to do that. Also, nowhere near as serious because it won't burn your house down, but if you have lots of dogs and cats, vacuum out the coils or whatever they are called under the fridge. They will be gross if you haven't done it in a while
Thank you. Must do.
Last December, my cousins lost their house possibly due to a dryer vent fire. His 3-story home went up in mere minutes. Yeah, definitely clean or replace your dryer vents every once in a while; it might save your life.
I don't know about other brands, but my Kenmore dryer has a filter screen in it that I pull out and clean every time I do the wash - very little lint gets past it into the vent tube.
I had a thermal switch go in the dryer a few months ago. I clean out the lint trap with every load of wash, but we still accumulated a ton of lint inside the dryer itself.
and DON'T use a 30' long section of flex pipe.... for a 15" reach!! get 4" steel pipe and only use flex sections if absolutely needed
I don't have an auger but it was pretty surprising how much fluff the first 10' of 4" galvanized leading away from the dryer had. I only have 10' of 3" shopvac tubing ... I wonder what is in the remaining 15' across the basement. I guess I'll add "go into the basement" to my todo list for the weekend.
stuart in mn wrote: I don't know about other brands, but my Kenmore dryer has a filter screen in it that I pull out and clean every time I do the wash - very little lint gets past it into the vent tube.
I agree you would think this would be the case, but my dryer (a Maytag) has a screen that I clean every time and there is an amazing amount of lint that collects on my vent cap to the outside. I do not doubt that there are metric crap-tons of lint in my duct.
Question. I live in a rental house where the washer and dryer came with the house. The exhaust duct goes down through the floor, make a 90° turn and runs about 20' to the outside wall. What would be the best way to clean the whole thing out? I'm sure its been waaaay to long since someone cleaned it out and I don't wanna die a horrible fiery death.
In reply to stanger_missle:
http://www.lowes.com/pd_37653-82862-RLE202-L___?productId=50371148&pl=1&Ntt=dryer+vent+cleaner
I dropped something down mine, but there was almost no lint after living there for nine years and doing a load every day
I suspect a hamster or other appropriatedly sized small furry creature, coated in duct tape (sticky side out) and placed into the duct and lured to the other end by food would make a convenient and effective method of cleaning said duct. Naturally he would be equipped with the usual safety equipment and be paid union scale.
tuna55 wrote: In reply to stanger_missle: http://www.lowes.com/pd_37653-82862-RLE202-L___?productId=50371148&pl=1&Ntt=dryer+vent+cleaner
That's the one I bought, and it worked really well.
stuart in mn wrote: I don't know about other brands, but my Kenmore dryer has a filter screen in it that I pull out and clean every time I do the wash - very little lint gets past it into the vent tube.
When you clean the vent you will be surprised at the amount of lint that got past that filter. All dryers have an internal filter and I still get a double handful of lint out of the 3' vent pipe every year.
Hal wrote:stuart in mn wrote: I don't know about other brands, but my Kenmore dryer has a filter screen in it that I pull out and clean every time I do the wash - very little lint gets past it into the vent tube.When you clean the vent you will be surprised at the amount of lint that got past that filter. All dryers have an internal filter and I still get a double handful of lint out of the 3' vent pipe every year.
Actually, no - as I said, when I clean out the vent pipe there's very little lint that gets by the filter. Maybe I just don't have that many fuzzy articles of clothing. 
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