Dryer Vent Cleaning

Faster Drying, Lower Fire Risk

The lint trap only catches part of the lint. The rest blows into the dryer vent and builds up along the walls of the duct, at every bend and at the vent cap outside. As the vent narrows, the dryer has to run longer to dry a load, the laundry room gets hot, and hot air and lint get trapped together, which is a real fire risk. Most dryer fires start with a clogged vent.

Signs your vent needs cleaning: clothes take more than one cycle to dry, the top of the dryer or the laundry room gets hot, you smell something burning, there is lint around the dryer door or the outside vent, or the flap on the outside vent barely opens when the dryer is running.

Many Valley homes vent the dryer through the roof or through a long run inside the wall, and those long runs clog faster than a short vent straight out the back. Birds also like to nest in outside vents. We pull the dryer out, brush and vacuum the full vent run to the outside, clear the vent cap on the wall or roof, replace crushed or plastic transition hoses with semi-rigid metal, reconnect everything and check the airflow before we leave.

For short-term rentals and rentals, where the dryer runs much more than in a typical home, an annual vent cleaning is cheap insurance.