Dryer takes two cycles to dry? Check the vent before you replace the dryer

A dryer that used to finish a load in 45 minutes now needs two cycles. The appliance repair company will happily replace the heating element. Nine times out of ten the element is fine and the vent is packed with lint.

The five-minute check

• Run the dryer and go outside to the vent cap. The flap should open and you should feel a strong, warm airflow. Weak or none means a blockage.
• If the cap is on the roof, look at the back of the dryer instead: pull it out, disconnect the hose, and run the dryer. Strong airflow at the back with none at the cap means the blockage is in the run.
• Look at the hose itself. Crushed foil or plastic hose behind the dryer is a blockage and a fire risk on its own.

What the fixes cost

A full-run cleaning takes about 30 minutes and is the cheapest thing on the list. Replacing a crushed or plastic transition hose with a rigid or semi-rigid metal one is a few dollars in parts. Re-routing a vent that runs 40 feet through the attic with four elbows is real work, but it is the last resort, not the first.

When it is the routing

Vents that end in the attic, vents with a screen on the cap, and runs that go up two stories and across the attic will keep clogging no matter how often they are cleaned. We look at the routing on every cleaning and tell you if it is one of these.

What customers tell us

The usual comment after a cleaning is that the first load dried in one cycle and the laundry room is no longer hot. One customer in the Lakeway area wrote that he knew twice as much about his dryer after the visit as before, which is the point: we show you the run and the lint that came out of it.