Is it necessary? I have been seeing ads for it all over and I don’t think it’s ever been done in my house.
Is it necessary? I have been seeing ads for it all over and I don’t think it’s ever been done in my house.
I live in a small town not far from DSM. There are 3 to 5 of these ads in the community FB group each week. I'm sure there are reputable companies out there that actually provide this service, but many of them appear to be straight up scams.Saw this article in Star Trib on the scam that is duct cleaning and reminded me of this old thread. I'd swear this is more prevalent in rural areas. I see spamming ads for this in about every Facebook page I follow that is Iowa related. Been gone from Iowa for decades but follow a few small town pages from my old birth county. It's always a "my husband and I started this small biz!" pitch from these folks.
I 2000 I demo'd some of my 1960 house and the ducts removed were actually pretty clean. Previous owners must have kept up on furnace filters and such. What dust there was not "friable" or loose at the low velocity of the forced air.
A dust up over duct cleaning
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Make sure the dryer vent is cleaned out every so often because that is actually a fire hazard. I think it’s one of the leading causes of house fires.
You could probably get the whole house and the dryer vent done for around $400-$500. well worth it especially if you want to breathe clean air.
Yes, depending on how far the lint has to travel through the vent, a lot of times it can resolve itself and just go outside the dryer vent. The problem is is when it starts to accumulate or get stuck somewhere along the way.I've heard this too, and I've also heard you're supposed to have a professional come and clean out your dryer cabinet because a lot of lint gets trapped in there too.
But then about a year ago I was doing some repairs on our washer and figured since I was already back there I'd pull out the dryer, open the cabinet and clean it, then replace the duct and clean it out as well. This was on a 12 year old dryer that had never had any of those services done. And there really wasn't much lint to clean out at all.
Obviously this a YMMV situation, but it made me wonder if all that cleaning is really necessary if you keep the lint filter cleaned and maybe stick a vacuum down the front of the machine once in awhile.
A related story from my life....Make sure the dryer vent is cleaned out every so often because that is actually a fire hazard. I think it’s one of the leading causes of house fires.
You could probably get the whole house and the dryer vent done for around $400-$500. well worth it especially if you want to breathe clean air.
We use the dryer vent wizard in the des moines area. They are very good with issues with your dryer vent. Had them out this fall and they found a bird had tried to build a nest in ours and replaced the outdoor vent with a better vent to prevent them from getting in. We have 2nd floor laundry so would have never found that ourselves. Originally had them out a year ago because our vent would not stay attached to the wall and they installed a new connection on the wall that fixed the issue.Make sure the dryer vent is cleaned out every so often because that is actually a fire hazard. I think it’s one of the leading causes of house fires.
You could probably get the whole house and the dryer vent done for around $400-$500. well worth it especially if you want to breathe clean air.
A related story from my life....
Our second house was an older home. The dryer was in the basement and the duct ran from there, under an addition, and out the side of the house near the ground.
The dryer vent exited right below a big living room window. Our second winter there, I noticed on a very cold day that I could see everyone's dryer vents blowing warm/moist air. However, I didn't see the same thing coming from ours.
I crawled under the addition and found that many, many, many years ago, the dryer vent line had become disconnected. So the lint had been getting dumped in the crawl space for probably decades. I reconnected the line, secured it, and cleaned out all the piled up lent. I took out 3 full garbage bags of lint from underneath our crawl space. It was a huge hazard waiting to happen.
I wouldn't think it is to smart to have electric wire in the duct work. If the wires ever caught fire in the duct work it will spread quickly. I may be wrong though.Had it done shortly after we bought our house because my wife has allergies and the previous owners had 2 cats. We noticed no change, but in fairness to the company that did the work, they couldn't clean everything because a couple of ducts were doubling as conduit for electrical wires.