Dryers Need To Be Cleaned For Your Safety

Sunday, September 14th, 2008...11:01 PM

Dryers Need To Be Cleaned For Your Safety

Dryers are the cause of many house fires. We must clean our dryer lint vents. We must also clean the vent line that goes out the back of the drier to the outside. Without this cleaning lint and dust particles build up and can be source of deadly fires.

Just this weekend a deadly dryer fire struck a family in Lexington, Massachusetts. See this story in the Boston Globe: dryer_fire_kills_lexington_mother. According to this article in the Boston Globe, in 2006 there were 87 fires in Massachusetts with cause linked to poorly cleaned dryer filters or vents, with 72 of these fires occurring in homes. While many of these fires were caused by mechanical malfunctions, about 20 percent occurred because people failed to clean the dryer lint screen. When you are cleaning the filter…just don’t pull the lint off…actually wash it under warm water to really clean it. In addition to cleaning the lint screen clean the vent pipe that channels hot air from the dryer outside at least twice a year.

Recently I found a great service called DryerVentWizard.Com that comes to your home and cleans, maintains and fixes dryer vents and the pipes/lines that link your dryer to the outside of your house. They are operating in New England and I suspect this franchise business is ramping across the U.S. Our experience with the DryerVentWizard.Com was very positive – the service was professional and timely.

Be vigilant on cleaning your filter and annual maintenance of the vent to keep safe. You can see how to maintain Dryer Vents with resources below on AskTheBuilder.Com and eHow.Com.