Thursday, 28 January 2010 15:12
Written by an experienced installer
The type of material used to hook up your clothes dryer is important. The wrong material will help cause the lint to build up behind your clothes dryer or add to the leaking of lint into your home.
We will point out the wrong material to use for connecting your clothes dryer to the wall. We will discuss the correct material and methods of connection with our customer's only. B.C. Dryer Ducts Only Inc. does not offer any no charge consulting.
Please be careful what you buy for connecting your clothes dryer to the wall in your home. The wrong material is sold daily at many of our large box store's.
We follow common sense and knowledge acquired from many years of experience. We do what we know works. B vent or fire-place material is NOT the correct material for a dryer exhaust duct, no matter what you are being told in the store selling it! We have even found appliance companies installing it!
The connection point is where many problems start that effect the whole system. Installing a type of material to connect your dryer to the wall is not always an easy process. Most home owners that hook up their own clothes dryer do not do it correctly. You may not be saving any money by doing it yourself!
The picture shows what happens when duct tape is used to connect the hose to the dryer. This incorrect material will not clamp correctly which causes the installer to use huge amounts of duct tape, which will usually get hot and fall off. Even if it does not fall off, you can see how much lint ends up behind the clothes dryer.
Worrying about the type of material and not worrying about the lint that is getting drawn into your clothes dryer is a mistake. It is lint inside of a clothes dryer that is more likely to cause a fire. Not to mention the possible health issues for some of us from breathing in lint dust over the years!
Flexible material to hook up a clothes dryer was invented decades ago and is still the best method of connecting a clothes dryer to the wall outlet. Hard pipe is not possible for everyone and the fact is hard pipe normally leaks a great deal of lint out.
Leaking lint into your home can end up inside your clothes, around the element. The element area is where most fires start. Having your clothes dryer taken apart by a qualified professional appliance person is recommended on a regular schedule. Just taking the back off your clothes dryer will not likely do the job. Notice we said "Qualified Professional Appliance person"! We are not and we do not provide this type of service.