Clothes Dryer Fire Prevention in Condos

Randy Mason

Dryerfighters

CLOTHES DRYER FIRE PREVENTION IN CONDOS

North American-style clothes dryers are responsible for thousands of yearly home fires. Highly combustible lint is created during the drying process. It’s not the lint you see when you clean the dryer lint screen. This lint accumulates where you can’t see it. IT’S HIDDEN, OUT OF SIGHT!

CLOTHES DRYER FIRE PREVENTION:

Carefully removing screws and panels from the dryer cabinet provides access to the dryer interior, exposing the hidden fire hazardous lint buildup everywhere inside the dryer cabinet. Many electrical components are ignition sources of lint: moving parts such as a motor, pulleys, and belt create heat and friction, with lint buildup in proximity to the heating coil/element, which becomes red-hot like your toaster element when the dryer is operating. continued…

Is dryer interior cleaning neces

sary? YES! Says who? Every clothes dryer manufacturer! The Electrolux user manual says, “Every 18 months, a qualified servicer should clean the dryer cabinet interior and exhaust duct. These areas can collect lint and dust over time. An excessive amount of lint build-up could result in inefficient drying and possible fire hazard”.

Interior clothes dryer cleaning is a specialized service that was created to address the manufacturers’ requirement of removing the flammable lint from inside the dryer cabinet. Dryerfighters has cleaned more than 250,000 clothes dryers.

Can I clean my dryer interior my

self? NO. It’s complicated, so special care and equipment are required.

“We’re having a company service our fan coils next month, can they spend a few minutes cleaning

our dryer interior?” NO. Duct cleaners and fan coil service companies don’t provide interior dryer cleaning, they service ducts and fan coils.

DRYER VENT CLEANING

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A DRYER

VENT FIRE. A fire CAN’T and WILL NOT start in the vent. ALL DRYER FIRES START INSIDE THE CLOTHES DRYER. A dryer fire

will likely spread into the dryer vent where lint has accumulated over time. Cleaning the dryer vent is the second most important component of clothes dryer fire prevention.

Dryer vent cleaning requires a large air

compressor operating at approximately 150 pounds per square inch, a specialized reverse-blowing air snake (35 ft. in length), a high capacity HEPA-filtered vacuum, and a competent technician. There are mechanical and electrical components associated with dryer venting that must be accessed and cleaned during the vent cleaning service, such as an inline exhaust fan and a secondary lint trap.

IT TAKES A TECHNICIAN AN AVERAGE OF 30 TO 40 MINUTES TO CLEAN THE LINT BUILDUP FROM INSIDE A CLOTHES DRYER AND DRYER VENT SYSTEM.

Randy Mason is President and General Manager of Dryerfighters and has been servicing the condominium marketplace since 1999.