While dryer lint is something no one would expect to have in their walls, you might be surprised. Here is just a couple of stories that are from Ashbusters Chimney Services where dryer lint was going where it should never be and no one knew about it.
A few weeks back I ran into a friend who told me about having the crew out to her house to clean her dryer vent. They came out and hooked everything up and nothing came out of the vent! Wow, it was really clean and on investigation; too clean. They unhooked the equipment and reached into the wall into the vent tube to find that there was no vent tube. That’s right, her dryer was blowing lint into the wall filling up the space between the studs in the wall. Ashbusters came in and removed the drywall, totally cleaned everything out of the wall space, put the vent back together the way it should have been the first time and made her house safe.
A few years ago, a crew went out to an apartment house to clean the dryer vent for one of the tenants. The same thing happened; they hooked up the equipment and nothing came out where it was supposed to vent to the outdoors. This time they flowed the vent tube from the apartment up to the attic and expected the tube was torn someplace along the way. What they found was amazing; all the dryers in the apartment complex were blowing lint out into the attic and everything was covered with dryer lint! The crew contacted the owner and went in and cleaned it up and hooked up the dryer vents the way they should have been.
You may not think this is a big deal; but it is. Dryer lint is one of the most flammable substances in our home and dryer fires are a major hazard in our homes. Hopefully, you don’t have dryer lint flying around where you don’t want it and get your dryers cleaned annually by a professional. If you don’t, then it’s time you thought about getting that done!