How often you clean your dryer vent depends on the activity level in the house and your total family size. The dryer went maintenance is important to ensure that your home remains safe and the clothes are completely cleaned. It is important to know how often should a dryer vent be cleaned to avoid initiating fires due to serious malfunctions.
Dryer vent and its location
The dryer vent connects the wall duct to the dryer using a vent pipe called the duct. The duct tube connected to the wall helps to send the air from the dryer outside. Heat is released due to the drum rotation in the dryer, which releases moisture from the clothes. This moist air escapes through the dryer vent.
Why is it important to clean the dryer vent?
The dryer vent can become clogged over time. If the moisture can no longer escape, it will keep the clothes moist, resulting in the clothes not getting dried at all. Also, lint and nests of animals can cause clogging in the vent, which may result in fire due to overheating. In another case, heating may cause the vent to burn out. In extreme cases, your clothes are likely to catch fire.
How often clean dryer vent
Usually, it is recommended to clean the dryer vent once every year if you have a small family size. If the family size is significant, it is preferable to clean the vent every few weeks. The same applies to houses with hairy pets. Thus, you will need to clean the vent multiple times during the year.
Do not put an article in the dryer before shaking off the pet hair. Similarly, new clothes have a lot of lint. It is preferable to dry new clothes using sunlight until they reduce most of the lint on them. Otherwise, they can clog your dryer vent.
How to know that the vent requires cleaning
Remember, if your clothes are taking more cycles to dry than usual, you may need to check your vent for a cleaning. In other cases, keep an eye on the external vent cabinet. If the cabinet gets overheated, you may need to clean the vent right away.
How to clean the dryer vent?
To clean the drier vent, you need to start with the filter. Pull out the filter and throw all the lint away. Once done, use tap water to clean it.
The drum itself holds a lot of lint and pet hair. Never put an article inside that is either unclean or has pet hair on it. In some cases, the drum may have something melted inside, like a crayon or a toffee. In such cases, make sure you remove the melted material. Finally, the dryer vent may require an extendable brush to clean it thoroughly. Such brushes costs around 20 USD. It helps to take out any lint that may be clogging the vent. In other cases, you may use a high-powered vacuum cleaner to suck all the lint. Visual inspections are another option as well. You can check if any lint is lying around and remove it immediately.
Conclusion
Cleaning your dryer vent can promote the safety of your house. It can also reduce the time required to clean. I prefer cleaning your vent regularly and preventing your pets from being in the washing room. Let us know if our article helped you out.
