Did anyone ever hear of getting a dryer vent FAN? Help!

koalamum

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 1:24 pm

My laundry room is situated in the center of my house and not near any window. Therefore the vent pipe for the dryer has to be very long and winding, till it gets the lint outside. As a result the dryer is VERY slow. I often use the extra dryer on my 3rd floor (my MIL was supposed to live there but she never made it. Now it is a guest apt). Though it is a pain in the neck, it is doable as long as I don't have guests.
Tomorrow my DD and SIL are arriving from Israel and moving in the apt. I will find it awkward to use the dryer, although if I have no choice - too bad!
I heard that dryers could have an extra fan installed that will blow out the lint. Did anyone hear of that? Does anyone know a good technician/repairman in the Brooklyn NY area who can help with that? Any recommendations??

fiddle

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 1:34 pm

ok here goes.

take a pail or a garbage pail or something your not using. fill it up with about two inches of water. hang over the dryer pipe thing over the pail, tape it on so it stays bc when the dryer is turned on it flips back so tape it on well, or if you have a cover-use it (recommended) hang the pipe above the water, not touching it at all maybe 3 inches about the water and viola you have a indoor dryer venting system and theres no need to use the upstairs one. in the winter when I dont want to keep my windows open I do this..and it smells nice.

and its free Wink

ra_mom

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 2:08 pm

I had a similar problem.
When we moved in, we had a dryer vent made that went from the ceiling in our laundry room, through my upstairs landlady's closet, and up to the roof.
It worked well. Then it got very slow, and the clothes always stayed so wet. There was way too much moisture.
We had a repair guy come. (Hard to find someone who deals with vents. That's another story entirely.) He pulled out the vent from the back of the dryer, saw that it was sitting in a u shaped loop. He said that because the vent is so long, it's very hard for the moisture to go against gravity and pull itself up two stories to reach the outdoor roof. He said that the moisture from the dryer was just sitting in the loop from the extra length of the hose.
He emptied the water from the vent into a bucket (there was lint there too) cut the dryer vent shorter, and made it very tight (from my dryer till the ceiling) so that the moisture would have an easier time shooting straight up.
He was very nice and charged $35. The dryer works much better now b"H.

fiddle

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 2:19 pm

koalamum wrote:

I'm just wondering if it doesn't humidify the room that way? Once someone tried to fix the vent by letting it back into the room. The clothes got dry fast but my wooden closet doors were cracking from humidity!

its not going back into the room, its venting into the water (not in the water) the water is absorbing the humidity.

koalamum

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 2:19 pm

ra_mom wrote:

Do you know his name and number? Would he be Aron by any chance??

ra_mom

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 2:24 pm

koalamum wrote:

ra_mom wrote:

Do you know his name and number? Would he be Aron by any chance??

I think it was Aaron. It took him a while to come down. I have his name and number on a sticker on my dryer. (I will give it to you once I am home- about 5:00pm.)
Tell him you got his number from a friend who said it took a long time for him to come, and you want to know if he can come right away Smile

koalamum

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 3:13 pm

ra_mom wrote:

koalamum wrote:

ra_mom wrote:

Do you know his name and number? Would he be Aron by any chance??

LOL! You don't have to give me his #. He came to me a few times and was quite reasonable. That's how I guessed it was him! But I had the same trouble with him. I just couldn't get him to come! He would answer my messages but told me to call back tomorrow. He didn't put me down on any list and it was up to me to just run after him. I just gave up!!

granolamom

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 8:28 pm

we have a similar problem. we used to do the bucket of water thing, but it really didn't solve the problem.
lucky for me, my dh is very good at fixing these types of things. he googled it and purchased a fan that you install in the dryer vent pipe. it needs to be plugged in, but only goes on when the dryer goes on. it is absolutely the most wonderful thing. and it cuts down on the time the clothes spend drying too.
my dh installed it himself, he googled for directions. so I'm sure a handyman could figure it out.

koalamum

Wed, Mar 25 2009, 9:08 pm

granolamom wrote:

Any clue which website worked for you? I googled it before and wasn't sure which made the most sense!

caringarden

Thu, Mar 26 2009, 10:27 am

We have a similar setup. When the drier starts taking too long, we disconnect it from the vent hose. Then my DH blows out all the accumulated lint with a shop vac that also blows, think leafblower idea. It works great. I look out the window to see the lint coming out of the hole and it looks like its snowing. After that, my drier works great for a while. I also think its a fire hazard for too much lint to accumulate, no?