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The Terror of Dryer Lint

My dryer wasn't drying clothes completely on the the automatic sensing cycle which required additional drying cycles to get clothes dry, sometimes as many as three cycles. This prompted me to start poking around to do some maintenance. The culprit was dryer lint. There was an excessive build up of dryer lint in the lint trap housing, the blower fan and its housing and in the exhaust ducts. I cleaned close to 5 pounds of lint out of the dryer. What I found in the unit's cabinet was scary. The lint and dust had built up heavily in there as well and it was around the heating assembly and tube. There was a lot of it and it had been burning. I'm really fortunate to have not had a house fire. I cleaned everything out and the dryer is working better than it has in years.

I'm going on a major appliance clean up and inspection this weekend. All the major appliances are being opened up and all the dust and dog hair is getting brushed and vacuumed out from fans, electrical/electronic parts and ventilation holes cleaned out. I'm going to do the water heater as well and drain the sediment from the tank. It should have been getting done before but that singed and burned lint and ash really got to me. This stuff is happening every 6 months from now on.
 
That really should be regular maintenance for any dryer,the fire hazard is real.What was your technique to get inside the dryer and open it up ?
 
I watched some youtube videos to get the basic lay of the land for my model so I didn't get any surprises and took off the back and the front lower panel after unplugging it. Everything on it was held together with quarter inch machine screws or phillips head screws. From there I could access everything I needed to with my hands, the long brush and the vacuum so I didn't have to take off the whole front, deal with the control panel or remove the drum. It was straight forward just a bit grubby and time consuming. I went slow and with a bit of care since I didn't want to damage anything and some spots were tougher to get at because I was avoiding taking the drum out. The blower wheel and housing could have been cleaned much faster if I pulled the blower wheel but to do that I would have had to disconnect the belt and remove the drum which required disconnecting the control panel and removing the whole front face of the unit. It would have taken longer to pull all that apart and put it back together again so I just cleaned the blower wheel fan very carefully in its housing. I didn't want to do that so it was a lot of scraping with fingers and small tools. It took me several hours but it was worth it. In the area between the blower fan and the internal exhaust duct there is a thermal fuse and a thermistor. The thermistor was coated with about a quarter inch of damp lint. I cleaned it up with a long coil brush from the blower but then ended up taking the thermistor out and taking a soft wire brush to it and cleaning it with some alcohol to get all the lint, dirt and a little corrosion off it. I was prepared to replace the thermistor, thermostat and the moisture sensors. I didn't need to replace any parts and the dryer is working better than it has in years. To give it a good test I washed an oversized heavy load of towels that was larger than the normal size load I would regularly wash and dry and the dryer was adding and deducting time from the cycle based on how wet it sensed the towels were and it went through the cool down cycle which I hadn't noticed lighting up for a long time. Towels came out perfectly dry and slightly warm but not excessively hot. I'm thinking it should be more energy efficient now too.
 
We hang our laundry on a clothes line to dry, either in the attic or outside. Fool proof and no maintenance required :wink2:
 
My dryer wasn't drying clothes completely on the the automatic sensing cycle which required additional drying cycles to get clothes dry, sometimes as many as three cycles. This prompted me to start poking around to do some maintenance. The culprit was dryer lint. There was an excessive build up of dryer lint in the lint trap housing, the blower fan and its housing and in the exhaust ducts. I cleaned close to 5 pounds of lint out of the dryer. What I found in the unit's cabinet was scary. The lint and dust had built up heavily in there as well and it was around the heating assembly and tube. There was a lot of it and it had been burning. I'm really fortunate to have not had a house fire. I cleaned everything out and the dryer is working better than it has in years.

I'm going on a major appliance clean up and inspection this weekend. All the major appliances are being opened up and all the dust and dog hair is getting brushed and vacuumed out from fans, electrical/electronic parts and ventilation holes cleaned out. I'm going to do the water heater as well and drain the sediment from the tank. It should have been getting done before but that singed and burned lint and ash really got to me. This stuff is happening every 6 months from now on.


You have learned a valuable and timely lesson. Dryer lint is one of those dangerous issues most people don't realise is so close to hand. We lost a house to a fire started by dryer lint. All that was left when we got back home was the foundation and a few shells of appliances. It is a devastating feeling. The volunteer firemen(we were living in a rural area at the time) arrived about fifteen minutes after the smoke was spotted. By another volunteer fireman who happened to be driving by. It was too late.

We had left the house to go to a wedding in another state. Mom and dad had just chucked a load of bath towels into the dryer before they left. The fire marshal told us afterward he was positive the fire had started in the utility area(the volunteer who spotted it said he saw smoke from that area of the house) from dryer lint being ignited by the water heater. We all look like 'huh, what?' The utility area, like most homes had the washer/dryer and gas fire water heater all in the same room. He told us it was nothing for a bit of lint to get swept across the floor from the motion of the dryer drum and once it got under the water heater either the pilot light or more likely when the main burner ignited, it flashed some of the lint and followed a lint trail back to the drier or caught the vinyl floor covering on fire under the water heater. Or as you noticed, flashing in the dryer itself. Either way it was a total loss. And one I have remembered well these last 35 years. My dryer gets cleaned a few times per year now.
 
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Don't forget to clean out the exhaust pipe. Despite the lint trap, some of the lint DOES make it into the exhaust vent.
 
Last year, a friend here in LA lost half her house to fire: dryer lint. My other friends are now strictly observing the rules of never leaving washers, dryers, dishwashers, etc., to run "on their own."
 
I'm recommending to everyone I know to clean all the dust, lint and hair out of any major electrical appliance that gets hot or makes heat/flames with gas or electric. I found a dust bunny and dog hair farm around the lower intake vents of my gas water heater. I'm starting to think its just pure luck I haven't had a fire.
 
Worried by mention of fires, I looked at my dryer this afternoon. Have no idea in the world how to take it apart to clean it.
 
Worried by mention of fires, I looked at my dryer this afternoon. Have no idea in the world how to take it apart to clean it.

Get your make and model number. Its usually around the inside door somewhere. Google the make and model and search YouTube. There are a couple appliance parts warehouses that do videos catering to the DIY crowd and you will find them either on their sites or on youtube. The part dealers will have the part prints for your model and usually a list of the most common parts that fail. The videos will probably be associated with those parts. You may not be replacing parts but they will detail how to open up your model to get inside. You can clean out from there. You might have to watch several videos a couple times but the info is out there. If you still can't find the info PM your Make and Model and I will try to find the relevant videos for you.
 
I had to repair our dryer last week (a seized drum roller; the tools I needed cost more than the parts, natch). I did a thorough cleaning out while I had everything ripped apart. It's amazing how much junk collects in there.
 
Worried by mention of fires, I looked at my dryer this afternoon. Have no idea in the world how to take it apart to clean it.

I don't take the whole thing apart. I do open & clean the bottom of my Kenmore dryer as shown in this video and I disconnect and check and vacuum the duct in the back at least once a year. There are plenty of youtube videos depending on your model dryer. I plan on replacing the duct and outside vent this summer as the outside vent is old and beat up.
 
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