Dryer Vent Cleaning ... an important task

Recently, in our Electric Coop Magazine, there was an article about the importance of cleaning dryer vents... which we knew about, but haven't done anything in 10 years (shame on us)

I suggested we hire someone to come (we have a crawl space and vents run under the house)... and clean them... Of course, Chuck won't hire someone if it's something he can do. He searched and found a vent cleaning tool available at Lowe's (and many other places) where you don't have to climb under the house.

Didn't hurt that we had about $50 in Lowe's GCs... when he found they had them available and it great reviews. So he bought it.

and yesterday, decided to use it... but not before I said I was going to Walmart for Soy Milk and would be back in half an hour to help. Well I went, came home, and he was already cleaning up!!! He said it was a snap (breeze) and was finished.

My task today was to clean out behind the washer/dryer and underneath (a tool came in the kit to help). What a lot of lint/dust. But now I feel like I have a new laundry closet (that's exactly what I have, both machines are in a closet and almost impossible to move)

No longer worried about the possibility of a fire starting due to accumulated lint.

All of you should do this, if you haven't already (in MI it was easy, we had a basement with a short vent, from the dryer to the outside wall, easy to clean from indoors and moving the dryer away from the wall was a breeze).

Mine is on an outside wall, and super easy to clean. We just replace the hose every so often. My dryer is one of those that you clean the filter every month....but I do it more often, convinced it dries better.

Good advice! I do this at least every six months every since we had two dryers die in the same amount of time... and then discovered it was because of the lint!

Every since.. as soon as the dryer starts taking longer to dry a particular amount of clothes.. I pull it out.. clean out the vent behind the dryer and coming from the dryer and then send dh up to the roof to clean that one out..(our vent runs about half a foot into the wall and then straight up) every time it's like getting a brand new dryer!

Plus.. like you.. I get to quit worrying about a fire.. that is scarier than having to buy a new dryer anytime!