Believe it or not, I spent years not knowing that you needed to clean out your dry vent. I would clean the lint off of the lint trap when I put clothes in the dryer, but that was as far as I ever got. I have to admit, it never occurred to me that you would need to go any deeper into the dryer to clean it. It helped that we moved every 2-3 years therefore, I guess my dryers never got clogged with lint. Not until we had lived in the same house with the same dryer for about 6 years when I started having problems.
I first noticed that my clothes were slower and slower to dry. I would have to run the same load twice just to get it to dry. Then, I noticed that the dryer was getting extremely hot to the touch. I even burned one of my son’s sweatshirts in the dryer vent cleaner. Since I really didn’t want to buy a new dryer, so I tried to look up what was causing this problem. I was surprised to find out the problem was very simple. The dry vent was clogged with so much lint from over the years. This not only leads to clothes drying very slowly, but it can also cause a fire. Since I often start the dryer and leave the house this scared me. I figured I need to get the dryer vent cleaned right away.
Since I wasn’t about to pay someone (it’s around $150 where I live) to come and clean it out, I picked up a do it yourself kit. It makes it so much easier to do on your own. All you need it the kit and a vacuum. You can head over to Amazon to grab a dryer vent kit. Plus you can use the dryer vent kit to clean your fridge coils too! Check out how to clean your dryer vent like a pro.
I started by cleaning off the lint trap. Then I vacuumed around the lint trap and vent to get out what I could. After you have vacuumed that area take the lint trap vent brush and insert the brush into the lint trap vent as far as you can. It is very flexible and takes a bit of maneuvering to make sure it goes in all of the way. Once you get it in, twist the handle of the brush while slowly removing it to trap the lint. If you have much lint on the brush I recommend repeating this step once more.
