Any appliance that gets hot will run some risk of causing a fire. That includes your kitchen stove and your heating system, of course, but also your clothes dryer. Yes, house fires can start with a clothes dryer, and when they do, it’s often because of the accumulation of lint. What can you do to keep your home and family safe and avoid clothes dryer house fires? Schedule professional dryer vent cleaning in Slidell, LA with our team. Here’s what you should know.
Cleaning the Lint Trap Helps
Yes, your dryer has a lint trap, which captures a lot of the dust that comes off your clothing during the drying process. Cleaning that out every single time you use your clothes dryer will definitely help reduce this problem. But not all of the lint is caught in the lint trap. Some of it passes through or around it and ends up in the dryer vent.
Dryer Vents Are Essential
Of course, if you have a gas-powered clothes dryer, venting that exhaust is critical to making sure you don’t end up with carbon monoxide in your home. But even electric clothes dryers need a vent. This is how they get your clothes dry. Moisture enters the warm air as the dryer tumbles, and as the air passes out the vent, it carries the moisture with it.
Dusty Dryer Vents Cause Many Problems
It’s not just house fires you should be concerned about. Having a dust-clogged dryer vent impacts your dryer’s ability to function properly. It reduces the amount of air that passes through, keeping your clothes from drying. If damp clothes aren’t enough of a problem, you’ll end up with higher bills, too, as you run the dryer more and more to get those clothes thoroughly dry.
Signs of a Clogged Dryer Vent
You should have your dryer vent cleaned every few years at the very least. If you’re not sure whether your dryer vent needs cleaning, keep watch for these clues.
- Dampness: Your clothes may still be damp when you expect them to have dried.
- Bills: Whichever energy source your dryer uses, you may notice an increase in the utility bill.
- Heat: The outside of a clothes dryer should always be cool to the touch. If it’s heating up, your vent is clogged.
- Odors: Either a too-hot odor, like scorching dust or overheating metal, or a musty odor, from moisture taking too long to dissipate, can be caused by a clogged dryer vent.
Professional Cleaning
Of course, anyone with an afternoon to spare could attempt to clean out a dryer vent. They’d have to do some research, move the dryer, and make an effort to get something into the vent to pull the dust out. But this is a terrible idea. It’s far too easy to do damage to your vents if you don’t have any training or proper equipment.