Our dryer has been less and less effective, to the point that Shaynee wanted to get a new washer/dryer. We had an issue with the dryer the other month and the service man commented that it doesn’t generate a lot of heat and that we should get our ducts cleaned. From reading online, it sounds like people recommend cleaning the dryer vent duct once or twice a year! We’ve done it a total of none.
How hard could it be? I used a dryer lint cleaner (brush on a long wire handle) and it got a little bit of lint clumps, but not much. Interestingly, I couldn’t pass down from the outside, which I figured was due to the wire brush not being able to navigate the tight right angle. Kind of like trying to implant a pacemaker in the right subclavian vein. Crazy, huh?
I read great reviews about the LintEater system, so for $30 I figured it would be worth a shot. The extensible flexible fiberglass shaft attaches to a cordless drill and drives a special brush up the 4″ duct in the wall. As exciting as the prospects seemed, this only cleaned out a little more lint, but not much.
There was a cutaway in the drywall so I opened it up and found where the duct joint exited to the outside. And there we found where all of our lint has been accumulating for the last 10 years. Apparently, the builders cut the rigid aluminum tubing about 3″ too short, so they created a cuff of duct tape to bridge the gap. Naturally, this duct tape tube had come unraveled, so lint was being pumped into the insulated space. Hot air still exited the exhaust, but not much lint. We vacuumed out all of the lint, then I spent the rest of the afternoon getting the duct to come together. After a short trip to the hardware store (and a long afternoon crouching and cursing over a tiny opening in the drywall) I was able to adapt some semi-rigid aluminum tubing to connect the two ends.
Now we just have to see if this was enough to do the trick.
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