Dryer Vent Cleaning Service

Dryer Vent Cleaning: You may not know the risks!

Are you aware that your dryer vent needs to be cleaned on yearly basis? The reason being is that you may not know that your dryer vent is one of the leading cause of house fires each year! Lint that is produced from your clothing slowly accumulates inside your dryer, your dryer vent transition, and the 4-in ducting that leads to the exhaust on the exterior of your home. 

If you didn’t know, lint is highly flammable. You may be thinking, well I clean my lint trap after every load, so this doesn’t apply to me. We are here to inform you that, your lint trap only traps a small percentage of what really comes off your clothes after each load! If you don’t believe us, remove your lint trap, and look underneath it. There you will find a lot more lint!

Your entire dryer vent exhaust slowly starts to build up, which causes longer drying times, damp clothes, water dripping from pipes, hot clothes, and unnecessary wear and tear on your expensive appliance. If you notice any of these signs, or it has been longer than a year, it is time to get your dryer vent cleaned by the professionals at Totally Clean.

Signs you need your dryer vent cleaned: Do Not Ignore Them!

Your dryer will tell you when it needs to be cleaned by a professional dryer vent cleaning company. You just need to be aware of the signs that your dryer vent is becoming clogged. It is suffocating and screaming for your help!

Clothing is still damp after a complete cycle

Ever notice that your dryer seems to take longer and longer to dry clothing? Sometimes it may be that you just had too much laundry in the dryer or large bulky items mixed in with your clothes. It could be that your heating element is starting to fail, but more than likely it is because the heat that your dryer puts out is not freely exhausting. 

When the heat does not exhaust properly it has nowhere to go! Since the heat and moisture are trapped inside your laundry unit, your clothes won’t dry. This is a sign that your dryer vents need to be cleaned.

Clothes are hot to touch

Since you are probably running your dryer longer and longer to get your clothes to dry you are overheating your clothes and your dryer. When your cycle completes and you open the dryer, you may think you found a solution to your clothes not drying properly. It is a bad idea to keep running your dryer until your clothes are dry. 

The dryer becomes overworked, and you are creating a lot of unnecessary heat which sooner or later is going to ignite all the lint built up in your dryer venting.

Exterior Dryer Vent Cover is Clogged

Take a look outside and locate where your dryer vent heat and lint exhaust to on the exterior of the home. If you notice substantial build up of lint on the louvers or flaps, then this is a good sine that your dryer vent needs to be cleared out. Make sure if you have any pest control guards or mesh covering the vent to remove and clean those periodically. Replacing your dryer vent cover may be in order and we would be happy to help you with that as well!

Your dryer literally is flashing a red light saying clean me NOW!

We won’t go into too much detail about this obvious warning sign, but we must mention it. Depending on your manufacturer, model, and year of production, it will most likely have a red light or some type of error code. If it is flashing an error code, quickly put that code into Google and you will find out what it means. This will help you decide on whether you need to hire a dryer vent cleaner, or you need to hire someone who fixes appliances.

Totally Clean Pro Tip: Please note that not all dryers have this safety feature, and some dryers are just on a timer to throw this code for liability reasons. Just because we told you this little secret doesn’t mean to ignore the big red blinking light. Call us and let us diagnose it in person. We find that dryers manufactured in the past 5 years all have this feature.

Benefits to cleaning your dryer vent

Now that you are a pro at diagnosing your dryer vent issues and know the signs to look out for, you may be wondering what the benefits are of having a clean dryer vent. The benefits will mainly be noticed in your pocketbook and time spent doing your laundry.

Short-term benefits of a clean dryer vent

1. If your dryer is only running one cycle to get your clothes dry, then you are saving tremendously on your utility bills each month. Your laundry machine is one of the largest contributors to your utility bill.
2. Less time doing laundry! Who really enjoys doing laundry all day? We have better things to do with our time!
3. Just having that piece of mind that the largest fire hazard in your home is taken care of and you and your family are safe. Priceless!

Long-term benefits of a clean dryer vent

1. Save money on replacing clothes from the dryer running too hot.
2. Your dryer will last much longer in the long term. By keeping your dryer running at optimal temperatures and operating within the parameters of the factor settings, it will last its recommended service life.
3. Dryers are expensive to replace. Maintain them and they will last!

How often do you REALLY need to clean your dryer vent?

The industry standard is to tell you to clean your dryer vent on a yearly basis. This is a good rule of thumb to adhere to, but it is also overkill for some residents.

You need to have your dryer vent cleaned once a year if:

1. Your dryer vent doesn’t comply with building codes and is longer than 35 feet. You would be surprised how many building inspectors and home inspections overlook this important building code!
2. It is a good idea to get your dryer vent cleaned more often if you have a lot of 90-degree angles in the construction of your dryer vent ducting.
3. If your dryer vent is constructed and held together with sheet metal screws. This is a big no-no! The sheet metal screws protrude into the pipping and catch lint at a much fast rate. Your dryer vent should only be held together with thermal foil tape.
4. Family size, frequency of doing laundry, and pets contribute to a lot of lint build-up. If you have a larger family and find yourself doing laundry every other day, get it cleaned once a year!

You probably DO NOT need your dryer vent cleaned once a year if:

1. You live alone or with a significant other and you do laundry sparingly.
2. Pets are not present in the home. Our furry friends contribute to a lot of pet hair, which gets clogged in the dryer and the piping.
3. The dryer vent adheres to building codes and is typically considered short piping runs. By this, we mean any dryer vent that has a more linear and direct path to the exterior. Shorter and straighter the better.

Totally Clean has seen a lot of different reasons to get your dryer vent cleaned or repaired. The list above is some of the major reasons to get your dryer vent cleaned on a yearly basis or to wait every other year. As always, we will clean your dryer vent and recommend a cleaning frequency that works for you and your family based on the many factors we listed.

Our dryer vent cleaning process rocks!

There are a couple of different ways to clean your dryer vent pipe and we would like to explain the two different methods. Each method works great if you have the knowledge and patience. We kindly ask that you avoid the leaf blower method you may have seen on YouTube and the cheap drill attachments you find on Amazon! 

If these are not done properly, you will be calling a dryer vent cleaning and repair company to fix the damages. The damages can get expensive in certain situations. The worst situation we saw, was when the dryer venting was routed underneath floor joists on the second floor and the piping blew apart because of the leaf blower! This customer had to hire a general contractor to rip out all the drywall to access the dryer vent piping. Yikes!

Drill Brush & Vacuum Method

Some professional dryer vent cleaning companies will use a drill brush and vacuum to clean out your dryer vent. There is nothing wrong with this method if their brush is long enough and are using a professional brush system that is made by SnapLok Systems. There are many cheap versions of the drill brush that will easily break off or damage your dryer vent ducting. You can find these cheap drill brushes in your local big box store and on Amazon.

High-Powered Air Line & Agitation Tools

At Totally Clean, we use the airline and agitation tool method. We find that this system is efficient, faster, and works for all types of dryer vent ducting layouts. For this method to work properly, companies use their air duct cleaning tools. A high-powered 175psi truck-mounted air compressor is needed along with a reverse blowing air nozzle attachment that agitates the walls of your ducting and blows the lint out the exhaust.