Importance of Dryer Vent Cleaning

When the weather gets bad and you can’t hang clothes out to dry, a clothes dryer can be one of the most helpful appliances you own. However, using a clothes dryer comes with its risks. If you don’t clean your dryer vent often, your clothes dryer can be a fire hazard in your home. To ensure your clothes dryer is safe to use, you should try to clean your dryer vent regularly.

Why Cleaning Your Dryer Vent is Important

Keeping your dryer vent clean prevents a house fire. That’s because lint (which is small fibers that come off your clothes every time you dry a load of laundry) accumulates in the dryer vent. When you don’t clean the lint out of your dryer vent, it can easily catch fire.

According to statistics, approximately 15,600 household fires, 400 injuries and 15 deaths are caused by dryer vent fires each year. In 1996, a report by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 15,000 household fires caused by dryers. According to the report, the fires resulted in 20 deaths, more than 300 injuries and more than $80 million fire damage.

But while preventing a house fire is arguably the best benefit of cleaning your dryer vent, there are multiple reasons why you should keep your dryer vent clean during months when you’re often using your tumble dryer.

Save on your energy bill

When your dryer vent is full of lint particles, humid air doesn’t travel down the vent as efficiently. Because of this, it will take longer to dry your clothes, and the longer you run your tumble dryer every month, the higher your energy bill will be.

Dry clothes more efficiently

As mentioned, a dirty dryer vent can cause your clothes to take longer to dry, meaning you’ll save time on drying clothes when your dryer vent is clean. However, in cases where the dryer vent has an exceptional amount of lint buildup, you might even find that your tumble dryer doesn’t dry clothes completely.

Protect your tumble dryer

When your dryer vent is blocked with lint, your tumble dryer will be more prone to overheating. This can cause it to burn out more quickly, and generally just isn’t good for your dryer.

Protect your clothes

A dryer vent that’s blocked with lint can cause problems with your clothes. If your tumble dryer constantly overheats, this could lead to heat damage on more delicate fabrics, for instance.

Much like any other cleaning and home maintenance, cleaning your dryer vent is part of what you need to do to keep your home safe and clean.

Signs Your Dryer Vent Needs Cleaning

If you’re not sure whether or not your dryer vent needs cleaning, there are some signs you can look for, these include:

• The laundry room gets very hot while you’re using the dryer.
• Clothing doesn’t dry within a normal dry cycle.
• Lint is visible around the around the dryer’s lint filter.
• The outside of the dryer gets very hot when it’s being used.
• There’s a lot of lint and debris in the laundry room, especially when the dryer is being used, there’s lint particles floating in the air.
• The outside dryer vent opening has visible debris buildup.
• Clothing is very hot after a dry cycle, perhaps even burning a bit if you remove it from the dryer directly after a cycle is finished.

While all of the above mentioned things could indicate that you need to have a dryer vent cleaning, you shouldn’t leave your dryer vent if it’s been more than a year since you last had it cleaned. If you can’t remember the last time you had your dryer vent cleaned, booking a dryer vent cleaning as soon as possible is recommended.

How to Clean Your Dryer Vent

You can clean your dryer vent yourself on a regular basis if you’re up to it. While you might not have all the necessary tools to clean your dryer vent professionally, cleaning the vent yourself from time is a good way of getting rid of most of the lint that’s trapped in the dryer vent. When cleaning your dryer vent yourself, you can also check for bird or squirrel nests near the vent opening outside. Unfortunately squirrels have a tendency to make nests in dryer vent openings, so it’s a good idea to check this area regularly.

If you’re unsure about how to clean your dryer vent yourself, it’s always best to call in a professional. Many people aren’t sure how to disconnect the dryer duct and reassemble the ductwork, but it’s important that every step is done correctly to ensure your dryer functions properly. But even if you are capable of cleaning the dryer vent yourself, it’s still good to call in a professional to clean the duct at least once a year.

Need a professional dryer vent cleaning? Call Chimney Sweeps West to keep your home safe from dryer vent fires.

The Benefits of Cleaning Your Dryer Vent

You depend on your dryer to dry your garments. Regardless of whether you dry garments once per week or do a load every couple of days, you expect your dryer will work. However, if you neglect to keep up your dryer vent cleaning, your dryer could fail. Even more terrible, your dryer could cause a home fire.

Your dryer vent is a standout amongst the most generally ignored parts of your dryer, however it does so much for your dryer system. Your dryer expels the dampness and build up from your garments through your dryer vent. Along these lines, it’s important that you keep up your dryer vent in good shape before it decides to clog.

Counteract Home Fires by Cleaning Your Dryer Vent

Dryer vents working incorrectly are one of the main sources of garments fires in homes. Lint that is not expelled from your dryer venting framework can stop up your whole system. In the event that this happens and your dryer overheats, your odds of encountering a fire skyrocket. Luckily, you can keep this issue from ever happening. By getting your dryer vent cleaned, you lessen your odds of encountering an apparel fire because of lint.

Take Out the Danger of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

You can exacerbate your odds of encountering carbon monoxide poisoning by neglecting to keep up your dryer vent. The colorless, odorless gas comes from fuel-burning appliances. Your dryer can be a wellspring of carbon monoxide danger too. At the point when a considerable measure of build up collects in your dryer venting framework, and your framework overheats, the vapor from your dryer can contain carbon monoxide. These exhaust fumes can radiate carbon monoxide each time you dry your garments without being detected. The most ideal approach to keep this from happening is by cleaning your dryer vent. Furthermore, if it’s been quite a bit since you cleaned your vent, you ought to likewise get your home checked for carbon monoxide.

Decrease the Cost of Your Energy Bill

A stopped up dryer venting framework forces your dryer to work harder to dry your garments. When your venting framework is obstructed, your dryer doesn’t have the wind stream it needs to dry your garments satisfactorily. Thus, stopped up dryers take more time to dry your garments, which builds your service charge. Furthermore, the more drawn out your garments are in the dryer, the more wear and tear your garments undertake. The more drawn out your garments take to dry the less wear you’ll get from them in general. You’ll be compelled to buy new garments sooner than you anticipated.

At Chimney Sweeps West, we are your go-to source with regards to cleaning and keeping up your dryer vents. With our assistance, you can drastically shrink the chance of garments fires and enhance your dryer’s general proficiency. On the off chance that you’ve seen your dryer isn’t drying as quick as it should, or you’ve never had your dryer cleaned, it’s time to call us. We are glad to look at your dryer and clean it if essential.

There’s nothing more irritating for a property holder than when the clothes dryer quits working. The chore of laundry reaches a total halt and there’s no place to put the basket loaded with sopping wet garments. For this situation most mortgage holders consequently believe there’s an issue with the dryer itself thus they call the machine repair organization. He takes five minutes to establish that there’s nothing wrong with the dryer. The dryer vent is stopped up. So now the property holder has paid for a repair visit that was never needed to begin with.