Dryer Vents

 

Often overlooked, dryer vents cause some 15,000 fires annually.

Lint and debris builds up in your clothes dryer vent creating potentially hazardous conditions including carbon monoxide in your home and dryer fires. An improperly vented gas dryer or a blocked duct is both a CO and a fire hazard. I repeat: Gas dryers will spill carbon monoxide into your home if they plug up. Cleaning reduces fire hazards, carbon monoxide spillage, heat element burnout, and your clothes will dry in one cycle.

What We Do and Why You'll Like It:

We measure the air flow and temperature at the termination before and after cleaning the vent. Besides making it clear what has been accomplished by cleaning we also have a baseline of air flow for your specific system. This allows us to check the system in the future with a simple test to determine if it needs cleaning or not. A great product is the Lint-Alert which will automatically warn you when back pressure is building up so you know when to call. This saves you a service call. You only call when you need service. Our tech can show you this product while he is at your home.

When we clean the system we use spinning brushes and an incredibly powerful 3 motor vacuum to loosen and suck the lint out. We clean all the way into the lint trap in the dryer and check the interior of the cabinet (if accessible) where fires often start. We will reroute the flexible connector, if needed, for better air flow and verify that the correct type of duct is in use. Plastic flex ducts (joining the dyer to the wall) do not meet building and fire codes and should be replaced with metal duct.

Dryer vent inspections are required due the typical construction of modern homes. Homes often have the laundry room away from an outside wall. This is a convenient placement but potentially hazardous regarding safety. The vents generally run greater distances with more bends. This makes your dryer duct harder to access and creates more places to collect lint and where critters (birds, rodents, and reptiles) can hide.

The Chimney Safety Institute of America recommends dryer vent inspections annually to secure safer and cheaper operation of your system. A clean dryer duct also limits heat, moisture and, if gas, carbon monoxide from entering your home. 

Energy, natural resources and time are wasted when your appliance works pushes hard against a constricted duct or runs longer than it should. If your dryer takes twice as long to dry clothes, its lifetime is cut in half. When the dryer must be run at higher temperatures, the life of your dryer and the life of the fabrics you are drying decrease correspondingly.