A few weeks ago, I noticed that our dryer was taking a long time to get our clothes dry. I decided to get my older children to help me do some investigating and try to find the source of the problem. I had a feeling that there was some lint trapped in the dryer hose but after investigating a little bit we discovered trapped lint in the pipe that runs inside the wall and into the attic so that it can vent outside.
Running your dryer excessively not only wastes electricity but it also shortens the life of your dryer. Lint can also become a potential safety issue especially if there is a large amount of trapped lint built up inside of your dryer hose and vents.
Before you move your dryer, locate the electrical panel in your house and turn off the breaker that supplies electricity to the dryer. After the electricity has been turned off, unplug the dryer and pull it out from the wall. Remove the dryer hose off of the back of the dryer. Our laundry room is pretty small, so I usually send one of the kids behind the dryer and have them unplug the dryer and remove the dryer hose. Next, remove the dryer hose from the wall.
Take a look inside of the dryer hose and remove any excessive lint using a vacuum. Replace the dryer hose if necessary.
Depending on your model of dryer, you might have to take it apart to remove any lint that might be trapped on the inside of your dryer. Reach inside of the back of the opening to feel for trapped lint or use the vacuum cleaner to remove any lint.
If your laundry room is on an inside wall, chances are the vent lines are vented through the ceiling which makes it more difficult to reach all of the trapped lint inside of the pipes. However, you can reach up inside of the hole in the wall and try to remove any lint using a dryer vent cleaning system or use your vacuum cleaner with attachments.
If you are lucky and your laundry room is on an outside wall, you can g o outside and unscrew the cover from the vent outside. Using you the dryer vent cleaning system or a canister vacuum cleaner, clean out the lint from this end of the line. Push the cleaning system or your vacuum cleaner tools in as far as they will go. I read on several blog posts to use a leaf blower on the inside of the house to clean out your dryer ducts. Please use caution if you have a gas powered leaf blower and make sure that you properly vent the room to avoid possible carbon monoxide poisoning.
After you have cleaned out the dryer hose and duct work, you can put your dryer back together and push it back into it’s spot. Don’t forget to turn the breaker back on.
After we cleaned out as much lint as we could from the inside of our wall, I noticed a huge improvement in our dryer’s performance. Routine maintenance can not only extend the life of your major appliances but it also reduces the chance of a fire in your home. You can hire someone to do this task for you but doing it yourself is fairly simple and easy.
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Do you try and tackle your own home maintenance issues?
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