Personal Insurance Blog

You should try to clean your dryer vent every year.  It helps it to run more efficiently and to prevent a fire.

There are products you can purchase to attach to a drill or leaf blower, but you should be able to clean it with just a shop vac that has a nozzle attachment.

First, be sure to unplug the unit, and if it’s a gas dryer, shut off the gas as well.

Pull the dryer away from wall so that you have room to remove the vent from the back of the dryer which is usually held on by a clamp.

Use the shop vac on the inside of the rear of the dryer and then in the vent tube.   You will typically find most of the lint build up at either end of the vent.   Be careful when reaching into the vent as there could be screws around the opening and use caution when inserting the shop vac into the vent as the material is easy to puncture.  If you are feeling ambitious, you remove the front bottom of the dryer to vacuum up any possible collection of lint there as well as in and around the lint vent.  

There should be a vent cover on the outside of the house where the vent tube  is attached to from the inside.   You can remove the cover so that you can vacuum that end of the vent tube.  Using care, try to reach in as far as possible to get any collection of lint.

If you are confident that you have cleaned the vent tube sufficiently, connect it to the back of the dryer, plug it back in and run it for about 10-15 minutes on fluff to see if any loose lint is blown out.   Once that is done, you’re ready to re-attach the vent cover on the outside of the house.