You may not know this, but one of society’s greatest innovations is just down the hall. Frequently overlooked, your washer and dryer set is an amazing technology that has improved people’s lives greatly over the past century. Therefore, it is crucial to keep your machines in good condition. An infamous problem that plagues Americans unfortunately often is with dirty dryer vents. To explain common problems with your dryer vent, you first need to know how your dryer usage has a daily impact on dryer vent cleaning.
What Does the Dryer Vent Do and How Can You Help It?
The task you probably know like the back of your hand is cleaning the lint trap. Unlike the lint trap, your dryer vent is contained within the machine and is responsible for general ventilation. However, the lint trap is considered a first line of defense in terms of dryer ventilation. See, any problems that arise with your dryer vent, originate with excess lint clogging it, hence why frequent cleaning of the lint trap is crucial to a healthy dryer vent. To accomplish this, you must clean the lint trap after every time you use it. Even in doing so, however, the dryer vent will always run a risk of being clogged, so it is always necessary to have periodic inspections. The frequency of such inspections depends solely on your usage habits. The average household does four to five loads of laundry per week. In this case, a comprehensive dryer vent inspection should occur every year. More frequent use, however, like doing multiple loads of laundry per day would require inspections twice a year.
The Problems a Dirty Dryer Vent Can Cause
As said above, the primary problem associated with dryer vents is excessive clogging. The effects of this vary and can be detrimental. Overall, the efficiency of the dryer as a whole is affected, as proper ventilation is hindered. The following are potential affect listed from mildly inconvenient to seriously harmful:
- The Uninvited Smell of Musk: Without adequate ventilation, the first thing to occur is heat entrapment, leading to excess moisture the smell that comes with it.
- Mold and Mildew: The smelly moisture from above is not always just an odor. It can actually foster the growth of such health hazards as mold and mildew.
- Not So Dry Laundry: The whole point of your dryer is to dry your clean clothes, and with an inefficient dryer vent, it’s going to take more than just one cycle to fully complete a single load of laundry.
- Money Hole: You may have heard a penny or two rattling around in your dryer, but get ready for your faulty dryer vent to really eat away at your finances. By requiring more cycles to dry the same load of laundry, your electric bill is sure to unnecessarily rise.
- Fire: More than just burning a hole in your wallet, you run the risk of a whole lot of fire damage with an inefficient dryer vent. The poor ventilation and excess heat could actually burn trapped lint.
Dryer vents and periodic inspections may seem unnecessary worries to waste time and energy on, but it is quite obvious that time and energy are not the only things at stake in the wake of a dangerously clogged dryer vent. Before wasting money and risking the loss of your belongings, it’s crucial that you invest in dryer vent cleaning in Marietta, GA.