How often should a dryer vent be cleaned in Texas, and what happens if you do not

The U.S. Fire Administration estimates a few thousand home fires a year start at the clothes dryer, and failure to clean is the leading cause. In Hill Country homes the risk is higher than average for a boring reason: the laundry room is often in the middle of the house, so the vent runs a long way through the attic and ends on the roof, where nobody ever looks at it.

How often

Once a year for a typical household. Twice a year if the run is longer than about 25 feet, has several elbows, terminates on the roof, or the house has a large family, pets, or a dryer that runs daily. Every time you move into a home, because you do not know when it was last done.

Signs yours is already blocked

• Clothes take more than one cycle to dry.
• The top of the dryer or the laundry room is hot after a load.
• A burning smell during operation.
• Lint around the outside cap, or the flap on the cap does not open when the dryer runs.
• The dryer shuts off mid-cycle. Newer dryers do this on purpose when they overheat.

What a proper cleaning covers

The full run from the back of the dryer to the outside termination, cleaned with rotary brushes and a high-powered vacuum, not just the four feet of flex hose behind the machine. We also check the routing: crushed flex duct, plastic or foil hose that should be rigid metal, screws inside the duct catching lint, and a cap that has lost its screen or its flap. Most jobs take about 30 minutes and the difference in drying time is obvious on the first load.

Why it is cheap insurance

A blocked vent costs you every month in electricity and dryer wear before it costs you a fire. One of our customers in the Marble Falls area called after a blocked vent finally broke the dryer. We were there within two days and the cleaning took under half an hour. A yearly cleaning would have been cheaper than the repair, and far cheaper than the alternative.

Book it with the ducts

If we are already at your house for a duct inspection or a chimney sweep, adding the dryer vent is the easiest upsell you will ever agree to, because it is the one you actually need.