A clothes dryer - no air out of the exhaust- dig out the wall? (roof, vac)

[ellenrr]

My friend owns a condo. She hasn't lived there for a few years but every 2 years for 32 years, she gets the exhaust pipe cleaned.
(don't know what it is called- the pipe that goes from the dryer to the outside.)

this time the guy from the company says no air is coming out of the dryer when it is turned on, so they must dig thru the wall to see what is up.

Of course my friend will get other opinions. I suggested she ask other people who live in the development if this has ever happened to them. Also to ask the Management - sometimes they will recommend a company.

I just wondered if anyone here has any opinion or experience with this.

Thank you!

ellen

[M3 Mitch]

I don't think you need to "dig out the wall", just pull the dryer away from the wall, take the exhaust pipe loose, (be prepared to replace it, they are not horribly expensive, I strongly prefer the metal ones to plastic). Something is plugged up, either in the dryer, the pipe, or the exhaust fitting in the wall. You can get specific brushes intended to clean these out. If the exhaust pipe is plugged or it's a plastic one, I would replace it rather than try to clean it, like I said they are not expensive.



I would do this now while weather is mild, don't wait for cold weather.

[harry chickpea]

Sounds drastic. Remove dryer and attack the piping from that end as well as the outside. If the pipe is damaged, then yeah, it may need a complete replacing, but that seems unusual. The little cameras on a wire might give more information, but not a lot that would be useful. Most likely there is a mountain lion sized hairball of lint.

[Therblig]

The ONLY reason they would have to go into the wall is if some of the ducting travels in a space between studs. That would be unusual; dryer venting usually goes straight through a wall, with pipe no longer than wall thickness plus a few inches. Taking the vent hood off on the outside, or pulling out the dryer and its exhaust hose, should enable a repairman to look right through the tube.

As said above, the dryer should be pulled out, the flexible part of the exhaust hose cleaned out (and possibly replaced - it's cheap) and the pipe from the inner wall to the outer vent cleaned out.

Unless that exit pipe has somehow collapsed or become clogged with solid material, it should not need replacement or any wall-attacking.

I smell a bit of a scam, here. Most vent/duct cleaning companies are as shady as used car salesmen anyway.

[kevink1955]

You never know how the vent was run, my sister in law has a Florida home where the vent runs from the 1st fl laundry room into a wall then up to the attic where it penetrates the roof and has a vent cap there. In total about a 20 foot run with 1 90 degree bend at the wall behind the dryer and a 45 degree in the attic.


My shop vac and brush method would be no use there

[ellenrr]

Thank you all! This is good news.
We also thot this might be a scam.
I hope she is not in a situation which Kevink describes.
More likely it can be handled.
I will pass on the information..

[Charlie&Rose]

Could just be plugged up with lint.....does need to be cleaned out every so often.

[MidValleyDad]

If it is a long run inside the wall I would have it 'scoped' with a camera before opening up walls

[K'ledgeBldr]

...perhaps it’s the dryer itself.
Nobody came up with that one!

[elliedeee]

Mine gets clogged up with bird nests which makes the lint have no place to go.

The birds love it though. Hubby, retired plumber, uses his electric sink cleaning machine to push all the nesting material and lint out.

At my insistence, we always wait til the babies fly off on their own.