Recently, my wife, Efiwym, has mentioned multiple times the clothes are not getting dry in the dryer. I usually wait until she reaches the level of “complaining” before I would react. I received a text from her one day that she smelled something burning in the dryer. Fearing a fire, she said she would not run the dryer when she was not home. I love my wife dearly and to think it was okay for the dryer to catch fire while she was home was not something I needed to hear. It was time to investigate.
When I got home, I stuck my head into the dryer and could not smell anything, except dryer smell. You know the smell that comes out of the dryer vent when the dryer is running. Depending on the fabric softener or the soap you use will change the smell, but they all smell like a dryer. I ran the dryer a bit and smelled nothing unusual. Efiwym concurred that she did not smell anything. She did say the vent on the back of the dryer drum was hot. I assured her that it would be hot since that is where the gas burner is located. I put the dryer on notice that I was not done checking it out.
We survived a couple weeks of no fires in the dryer, but I planned on working on it anyways. Efiwym was taking some action prior to the weekend. She made an attempt to vacuum the area behind the filter and outside by the vent. The prior snowstorms and below zero temperatures were keeping the louvers partially closed on the vent. She had removed the frozen lint around the opening and from the louvers. I went out and purchased a vent brush with a telescopic handle and duct tape. That is all I needed to remove the excess lint, if there was any.
There is very little space to connect the inside vent pipe to the outside louvered vent pipe. Because of the way the laundry room is laid out, the dryer needed to be in a particular spot, or the back door cannot be opened. A round hose cannot be used. So, I used a telescopic rectangular vent. The vent has been used since we bought the house with three different dryers, and it works.
There is a small space between the wall and the dryer, and it is difficult to line up the vent. First, the vent pipe had two female ends on it. We had another dryer vent pipe before, and the vent pipe did not fit over it. I believe I had two female ends. I crimped the inside pipe and now it fits. Too cheap to buy a new one, I have been using this vent pipe with plenty of duct tape to make it airtight.
However, I hate removing the vent because I cannot squeeze my big body into the small space to line up the vents and tape them up.
Plan A consisted of using the brush to clean up the lint around the dryer filter and the telescopic vent without removing the vent. I would just scrub the vent from the outside and vacuum up the lint. I started with Plan A and cleaned up the filter area. I removed the filter housing so I had better access to the bottom. After completing this part, I decided I was done with Plan A. I needed to pull the dryer vent. I believed the telescopic vent was clean, but I was worried about the vent pipe that runs from the front to the back of the dryer.
Plan B was in place. I put the filter housing back on and cleaned up the dryer. I muscled the dryer forward. The end of the vent pipe from the dryer popped off and I was able to remove it from the wall vent. I passed the vent on to Efiwym to clean.
I decided first to clean the floor and the sides of the washer and dryer. After I had the floor free of debris, I would tackle the dryer.
I could see right at the vent opening there was a pile of lint. I removed it. I reached in a grabbed some more. I reached as far as I could go and pulled out another wad of lint. I showed Efiwym the large pile of lint. I believe she was happy that I decided to pull the vent and her concerns were justified. I disposed of the pile of lint. I plugged in the dryer and ran it to blow out any lint I could not reach. I used our vacuum cleaner with the extension tool to vacuum out the vent. I reached in once more, and the vent seemed clear. I vacuumed the floor behind the dryer, and I was ready to install the vent pipe.
Efiwym was still doing her darndest to get every piece of lint out of the pipe. I suggested that we buy a new one and she told me “Not after all the work I put into it.” That was fine with me. It was still working after 37 years. We decided it was the best she was going to do with it, so she gave it to me to install.
I squeezed myself behind the dryer with the vent pipe and the duct tape in hand. I have learned my lesson about duct tape. Do not go cheap. The heat will start to break down the adhesive and it will leak. I first installed the vent to the dryer. This was the easy end. With two strips of tape, I was done. Because I needed to angle the dryer to get the vent pipe on, the space between the dryer and washer became smaller. I was still able to push my gut through the opening so I could push back the dryer.
Once in front of the dryer, I tried to align the dryer vent to the wall vent. I could see daylight, so I knew I was off. On the floor, I reached to feel the alignment. The pipe was too far over. I got up and pushed the dryer and washer tightly against the laundry tub. On the ground again I pushed the vent into the wall vent. With a crunching sound, the vent went in. There was not any daylight. Success! However, I still needed to get tape around the vent pipe.
Getting tape around the pipe is a one-handed affair. I cut the tape to length and laid it on top of the pipe hoping it did not fold on itself. With my right hand, I guided the tape around the sides and bottom of the pipe. That went well. One more piece, just to be sure. This time I started from the bottom and pushed the tape tightly against the bottom of the pipe and again around the sides and top. While I was down on the ground jammed into the space, I asked Efiwym to turn on the dryer, so I could check for leaks. No leaks. Efiwym said the dryer sounded better.
I went outside to check the air flow. Not only did it sound better, but it also felt better. It was a stronger flow coming out of the louvers. As the dryer ran, its sound in the background provided me with a sense of happiness. Or was that my Zen moment. What was I concerned about anyways? It was just like I planned it. We will find out when she does the wash on Tuesday…