Easy DIY Projects #2: Fire Prevention

Regular readers will remember my blog post “Where There is Smoke, There is Fire.” Here is the link

In that post, the problem of dryer vent fires was discussed. These fires are very common and easy enough to prevent. So easy, in fact, that I, too, had neglected to do the necessary maintenance at my house that would help prevent such a fire. It occurred to me recently that I hadn’t checked on how much lint was built up in my ducting. (That reminds me of the movie Brazil, when they asked, “How are your ducts?”)

Here are the steps involved. The whole process should take about 30 minutes or less:

Pull the dryer away from the wall and disconnect the vent hose.

Look inside the vent hose, and also inspect the area where it connects to the dryer outlet and to the outlet that goes to the outside of the house. See any lint buildup? If so, pull it out and then vacuum the fine lint out of the outlets and the vent hose. A shop vac is great, but a regular household vacuum with a hose works, too.

While you’re there, collect the loose change and missing socks from behind the dryer. Vac up the dead spiders and wash the floor.

Reconnect the vent hose to the back of the dryer and the outlet to the outside. Mine is easy because it has spring circlips. You may need a screwdriver to do yours if it’s screwed or has a large hose clamp. If it’s taped, you will need to cut the tape, and then use a different mechanical fastener so you can do this regular maintenance procedure again in the future. I like circlips and hose clamps for this.

I like to see rigid metal ducting for this use, but flexible metal ducting also available. These two options are more fire resistant than my Mylar hosing. I’ll create another blog post discussing my switch out for my dryer duct soon. And never use white plastic hosing, since that will certainly burn in a fire.

FYI, in the case of my dryer ducting, the greatest area of build up was on the outside flapper, where condensation made the metal wet, and then lint built up. Less likely to cause a fire, but the clot was making my dryer work very hard.