An uncleaned dryer vent can catch your house on fire.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that lint-filled dryer vents cause 15,500 fires, 10 deaths and at least 10 injuries every year.
These fires are preventable.
When lint accumulates in your dryer vent, it prevents air from flowing through the vent. Lint can easily catch on fire.
The problem is exacerbated when the dryer vent is extra-long if the dryer isn’t located near an outside wall.
Too many people think the dryer’s lint trap catches all of the lint from the laundry, but it doesn’t. Some lint makes it way past the trap and can build up around the dryer’s heating element and in the vent.
So it’s important to clean the dryer vent once a month, and to make sure nothing is blocking it on the outside of the house where it exhausts.
When was the last time you checked yours?
