Check Your Dryer Vent

When Jessi and I first hooked up our dryer vents we went the cheap route: duct tape. We already had some and it saved us a trip to Home Depot. Unfortunately, over time moisture weakened the tape. You see, our vent goes up through the roof and so the duct tape was literally holding our vent hose in the air.

Eventually it weakened it enough that the tape gave way and our vent hose fell down. So... off to Home Depot we went to get the correct connection.

While there, it was suggested we also take a look at, and clean out, the part of our vent that went through the attic. We learned that over time the vent can get clogged with lint. So, that's what we did and WOW! There was so much lint built up it looked like it had never been cleaned out! We also discovered that at one point a huge dent had been made to the vent, further blocking air flow. We were making our dryer work harder than it needed to.

We started to clean out the vent, but quickly decided it would be best just to replace the whole thing. Now our drying is humming along and drying everything very quickly.

So, make sure you check your dryer vents every once in a while. We plan to check and clean ours out once a year along with our other annual maintenance items.