House Post: New Dryer Venting

I KNOW, my life is just TOO EXCITING, right?

Anyway.

The last three contractors/service people who have entered our basement have all zeroed in on our dryer and said “um…you know that’s super dangerous to have it vented like that, right?”

So: new year, new me, I finally got off my ass to do something about it.

Apparently, though, I did not take a good picture of the previous configuration? Anyway: the main problem is the white plastic ducting you can see there. It snags dryer lint and gets overheated and was a nasty fire risk.

See? Loooooots of dryer lint. Now – you can clean this out with either forced air (like a leaf blower) or these attachments they make that spin around, etc. However. The plastic is super fragile and old and probably would have shredded if I’d tried that.

It was also very jankily held up by, if you can see closely, plastic stripping held together with twist ties.

I opted to also replace the elbow coming out of the dyer at the same time because why not. I also probably should have bought the semi-rigid duct stuff instead of this more flexible stuff but live and learn, it was only $30 spent in materials and in 3 more years if I am unhappy with this I will do it over. It only took about 2 hours of my life.

And the final new venting: straighter, smoother on the inside, and stronger overall. I turned on the dryer and went outside to test to make sure it was blowing strongly, and it was, despite the 16′ length from dyer to exterior wall.

So: boring, but quick and easy and a decent improvement in overall house safety.