Excellent post here from Charles Buell regarding the importance of keeping a clean dryer vent...
I have blogged in the past about the fire hazards associated with dryer lint, and it is a very real hazard.
Today’s post is about another problem with dryer lint.
If you clog up the dryer vent cap with lint so that the air cannot escape, all that warm moist air will condense on the inside of the metal pipe all along its run to the clogged cap.
Not only will it take WAY more time to dry your clothes, all that moisture has to go somewhere and will eventually leak out of the pipe and into the crawl space or some other place you don’t want it. Over time this can amount to many gallons of water ponding on the crawl space plastic ground-cover as can be seen in the following picture. It will also pick your pocket and cost you a lot more money to operate the dryer.
Large amounts of water in the crawl space is conducive to decay/rot, mold, and wood destroying insects not only in the crawl space but elsewhere in the home as well. This will result in picking your pocket and costing you even more money in repairs----all for the want of 60 seconds of maintenance.
How clean and functional is your dryer vent cap?
Charles Buell, Seattle Home Inspector
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PS, for those of you that are new to my blog (or for some other "unexplained" reason have never noticed)all pictures and smiley-face inserts (emoticons) (when I use them) have messages that show up when you point at them with your cursor.