Importance of Dryer Vent Cleaning

Home and business owners with dryers should never ignore cleaning their dryer vents. In this blog entry, the professional Houston dryer vent cleaning service team here at Pro Attic Houston will describe the importance of dryer vent cleaning.

Lint Comes out of your Dryer Basket

Dryers come with lint baskets that need to be emptied after the dryer is used between 1 to 3 times (based on what was dried.) Items like towels, blankets, cat beds, dog beds, and the like usually create much more lint than other items. Lint baskets prevent lint from entering the air ducts and clogging them. Lint usually escapes a bit out of lint traps after every load of laundry, people often forget to empty lint traps, and scraps of lint can easily be dropped into air ducts as the lint trap is removed, causing serious issues.

Lint Traps and Fire Risk

Have you ever removed clothing from your dryer and been shocked by how hot it is? Dryer air ducts are meant to release some of this heat to prevent the dryer from getting too hot. If dryers, or any appliance, get too hot, it can rapidly cause a fire. FEMA estimates that 2900 dryers catch on fire on an annual basis – and that dryer fires cause 35 million dollars in monetary damages every year. FEMA estimates that the top cause of these dryer fires is a lack of dryer duct cleaning. Dryer duct cleaning should be carried out at LEAST once every 6 months.

Benefits of Clean Dryer Ducts

Clean dryer ducts make it faster for your dryer to dry clothes, use much less electricity than it would otherwise, are more environmentally efficient, and put less mechanical strain on the dryer, increasing its lifespan. The benefits of dryer duct cleaning quickly pay for the cost of the services. With dryer duct cleaning, you can save 30 percent of the energy you would spend on a 30 minute load of laundry VS. a 45 minute load of laundry. 

How to tell if you need dryer duct cleaning

You probably need dryer duct cleaning if a normal load of laundry on normal heat settings takes longer than 30-45 minutes to dry, if the dryer vent hood is stuck, if lint is leaving the vent, if a ton of lint is collecting around and inside the lint trap, and if a dryer duct hasn’t been cleaned in over a year (which is incredibly dangerous.) Contact Air Duct Charleston today for high quality, convenient, and affordable Charleston dryer duct cleaning services.