Have You Vacuumed Your Dryer Lately?

Have you vacuumed your dryer lately? Vacuum the dryer at least four times a year, for safety and fire protection. Now is the time to vacuum!

With all of the chatter about quarantine zoom outfits and lack of showering, we’re still managing around here to have a large buildup of laundry. This past year, the laundry load hasn’t decreased, but rather increased, especially with towels.

Laundry is a chore I don’t feel I’m ever really caught up on. I’m sure I am not alone in this. But for some reason, the pile of dirty towels sitch in front of the washer never seems to go away. Well, at least for more than a day, and with the kids learning virtually and a husband working on other “honey-do” projects, the laundry is a chore that is mine. For now.

I’m always perplexed at the amount of soap scum that ends up attaching itself to the washer window, and I take care of that with a swipe of a Clorox wipe, but it’s when the “check filter” light comes on the dryer that I take heed. Towels fill up the lint filter and so do flannel sheets and blankets.

It’s time to clean out the dryer lint filter.

In addition to cleaning the dryer filter after each load has dried, there are many other areas in and around the dryer where lint can accumulate and could potentially be dangerous and cause a fire. I feel there’s no time like the present to share a few dryer safety tips. I reached out to my friend Victor, a retired firefighter, to give me a few dryer safety recommendations as well.

It was last week when the check filter light came on, so I decided right then and there to do a deep cleaning. To start, I took the front filter out, and vacuumed it thoroughly. Using a long, slim brush in one hand and the vacuum nozzle in the other, I got inside the filter area and vacuumed up as much lint as I could.

Here is the dryer vent cleaner kit that I recommend.

Next, I pulled out the dryer so I could get behind and perform a heaving cleaning in that area. Once I got back there, I unscrewed the vent and brushed and vacuumed the lint that was all around the inside. I vacuumed the floor and the walls, and removed the lint buildup in the vent area leading outside. Next, I unscrewed the top of the dryer and vacuumed all around the drum area. These are all places that aren’t right in front of us on a daily basis, but where lint can accumulate in dangerous quantities and needs to be removed. Here are a few more of Victor’s dryer safety tips:

• Make sure dryer sheets are not dropped under the dryer.
• Make sure your dryer has plenty of room around and underneath to vent and breathe.
• Don’t place items close to the dryer, especially plastic laundry baskets. The heat from the dryer can cause them to ignite.
• The vent tube should be made out of corrugated metal, not the thin foil kind.
• And most of all, never ever leave our dryer on when you leave your house.   This goes for the washer too. All machines fail and it’s better if you’re there to mitigate the problem.

So, for the safety of your home and your family, perform a deep lint clean up at least twice a year, or more often with heavy use. Being that heavy use is the case around here, I’ll be on lint cleaning duty four times a year until further notice. Meh.