r/preppers • u/Kitso_258 • May 30 '21

Advice and Tips Clean out your dryer vents

If your living situation allows you to have your own dedicated washer/dryer within your home-space, clean out your dryer vent. Unscrew the lint trap holder and vaccuum out the stuff stuck to the sides. You can get a lint duct brush and mostly clean the ducts yourself, or if it's bad/out of reach, hire a professional. This is especially important if you've got pets - my dryer was FULL of pet hair.

Why is this important? Several reasons:

1, new appliances are in short supply right now. Take care of the one you've got.
2, new appliances cost money, see above.
3, it'll increase the efficiency of your dryer and use less electricity.

But the most important reason is that this is a HUGE fire risk. Lint = tinder, and all it takes is one spark in the wrong place to cause the lint to combust. And by spark, as everyone else has pointed out, it could just be the dryer heating element doing it's thing.

Little things like this... make our lives just a little bit better and safer.

Edit: Didn't expect this to blow up. If you wish to save the lint for future fire starter, then save away. My household produces SO MUCH of the crap that I don't ever worry about saving it for the long term...

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237

u/throwAwayWd73 May 30 '21

Empty the lint trap after EVERY SINGLE LOAD

My wife is bad about that one. The build up after even two loads isn't good.

44

u/Graysect May 30 '21

How do the fuckin clothes dry? I do that to mine and the clothes are still damp

16

u/BeneGezzWitch May 30 '21

So I was having this problem and the appliance guy came out and told me to stop using dryer sheets because it was coating the inside of my dryer and the electronic sensors in the drum were not detecting the dampness and calling everything dry and ending the cycle. he wiped it with some solvent to get it all off and I stopped using them and my clothes have been drying better ever since.

16

u/LlamaDrama4YoMama May 30 '21

We use those wool balls about the size of a baseball. Work great and reusable for what seems like forever

3

u/Seguedlife May 30 '21

Love mine! Except when there’s something polyester in there, lots of static. I heard a diaper pin stuck in one can help but I keep forgetting. Do they even still make diaper pins?!