While you’re deep in Spring Cleaning, don’t forget your clothes dryer vent. Many dryers let off heat while they run, so you might opt to run them overnight. This is the time when house fires are most dangerous–while the family is sleeping.
Clothes Dryers and House Fires
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, there are approximately 2900 home clothes dryer fires caused each year, resulting in about 5 deaths, 100 injuries, and $35 million in property loss. The leading cause of clothes dryer fires is the failure to clean the vents, and it’s 100 percent preventable.
Cleaning Your Dryer Vent 
This may be groundbreaking news. You might say to yourself, “I clean my lint trap every day!” That is not enough. Cleaning the lint trap is not enough to keep lint out of your dryer vent. In fact, there is NO safe way to keep lint out of your dryer vent. The hose leading from the back of your dryer to the outside of your home has a job to do. It vents heat, water vapor, and lint to the outside of your home, and can often become clogged. It’s when a clog happens that airflow is obstructed, heat accumulates, lint ignites, and a fire is the result.
Schedule Your Dryer Vent Cleaning
A professional installation usually means the retailer does the installation. More often than not, retail installers don’t make safety recommendations and it’s your responsibility to get a professional involved. It can prevent fire, lengthen the life of your clothes dryer, and will make your home more comfortable.
Signs that You Need a Dryer Vent Cleaning:
- Your dryer heats the room or the home where it’s installed. If the dryer is venting properly, the excess heat should be vented to the outside.
- Your dryer takes more than one cycle to dry a moderately-sized load. A dryer that doesn’t dry in one cycle has a venting problem. If it takes two cycles, it’s life is shortened by half, and you’ll be buying a dryer in five years when it should last ten.
- Your dryer creates humidity in your home and the room where it’s installed. Like heat and lint, the water vapor should vent to the outside of your home. If it comes into the house there is most likely an obstruction and leak in your dryer vent.
Why Hire a Professional?
Hiring a CSIA Certified Exhaust Technician® (C-DET) means you will have documentation that your dryer vent was professionally cleaned in case your homeowners or renter’s insurance requires it. Hiring a professional also ensures that your clothes dryer vent is “up to code”. Did you know that many municipal authorities and manufacturers have installation requirements for dryer vents? The retailer that sold and installed your dryer vent most likely doesn’t know either. That is why it’s never too late to call a C-DET professional who can make sure your dryer vent is clean, safe, and properly installed.
Brickliners offers dryer vent services because we put consumer safety first, and that doesn’t stop at chimneys. Our dryer vent technicians are trained to do a swift and thorough job, without interrupting your life, or your laundry.
Call Brickliners today at 802-872-0123 or request an appointment online.