Servicing Areas

West Contra Costa County • Alameda County • Marin County • San Mateo County

Dryer Vent Cleaning

Are your clothes taking longer to dry?  Is the dryer getting hot?  Does the laundry room seem full of steam when attempting to dry clothes?  Is there lint piling up around the back of the dryer? Such signs indicate that the exhaust system is not working properly. Because the lint often builds up relatively slowly, the homeowner may not realize the danger to which they are exposed.

These are symptoms of a clogged dryer vent.  Lint, like creosote, is highly flammable.  If left inside a dryer vent and exposed to greater temperatures due to the increasing congestion of lint, the situation becomes more and more dangerous with each load.  For large households with pets familiar with the constant hum of laundry appliances a more aggressive maintenance schedule might be necessary, depending upon the run and layout of the vent.  Establishments like bed and breakfasts can use a dryer vent cleaning several times a year!

Gas dryers produce carbon monoxide.  This colorless and odorless poison gas leaves people feeling sluggish or with flu-like symptoms at low levels and is potentially deadly if consumed in large amounts.  If a dryer vent were to become backed up with lint, carbon monoxide could be released into the living space.

That’s one reason we use InOvate Dryer Vent connectors.  In recent years InOvate has developed a remarkable semi-rigid connector which has all the strength of rigid vent yet is more flexible than the inexpensive semi-rigid dryer vent connectors typically found in hardware stores. 

Unfortunately, most homeowners do not know that the “slinky” style tube responsible for safely exhausting their dryer is plastic, porous, and prone to disintegration!  And it, like the lint gathered within, is flammable! Even commonplace semi-rigid connectors can be crushed with one hand.  This defect is important.  If a dryer is pushed too hard up against a wall due to lack of space, a situation common to cramped laundry rooms, it is easy to dent or otherwise damage the connector.

We run rods and brushes the entire length of the vent while operating a vacuum (we use SnapLok rods which unlike other dryer vent rods will not come unscrewed in the vent if the drill direction is inadvertently switched), followed by blowing the system with a modified leaf blower.  The dryer connector is reattached, any lint that escapes the bag is cleaned up, and we measure the exhaust velocity again to see how much we have improved the efficiency of the system.  You’ll get a digital report with pictures at the conclusion of the service.  We also have dryer vent cameras, clog busters, and noisemakers (which help us locate obstructions) and a bunch of cool gadgets to use if necessary to get the job done right.