Cleaning your dryer exhaust vent doesn’t just keep your dryer from breaking down. It also protects you from potentially catastrophic – even tragic – accidents. According to the United States National Fire Protection Association, clothes dryer accidents are a leading cause of house fires in the country. More than any other factor, these dryer fires are caused by blocked vents. That means that most of these fires – which kill an average of thirteen Americans every year - could have been prevented by simple vent cleaning. How does vent cleaning prevent fires, exactly? Well, read on to find out!
The Flammability Of Lint
Twenty-seven percent of dryer fires start when lint or dust in the exhaust duct overheats or touches a spark. Cotton, wool, and synthetic clothing fibers all burn easily. When you have them crispy dry and packed into a tight, heated space, it’s like a gas stove just waiting for a match. One little spark is all it takes to send it all up in an immediate fireball. If things overheat enough, it might not even take a spark.
Dryer Vents Are Important Waste Heat Disposers
A dryer uses heat, combined with motion, to dry out your laundry. Unfortunately, high heat levels are not good for machine operation, so the dryer needs to constantly expel that heat energy before it builds up. If the exhaust vent has too much dust, lint, and other debris in it, the heat cannot escape and gets backed up inside the duct. The best-case scenario here is that the dryer will overheat and suffer mechanical failure. In that case, the dryer will need expensive repairs or even replacement. The worst-case scenario is that the heat causes a thin, dry lint patch inside the vent to ignite. Then, the packed-full debris goes up.
Clean Dryer To Prevents Short Circuits
Aside from sheer overheating, dryer fires are often started by electrical sparks. These sparks are either created by friction caused by mechanical grinding, or by a short circuit forming between charged wires. Both of these situations are much more likely to arise when there’s a blockage within the mechanism, and a backed-up vent provides plenty of that. Aside from being flammable, lint particles are extremely light, and backflow from the exhaust vent can send them deep into the machine. To prevent blockage from pushing back into the dryer, you need to get that material out of the system before it can happen. Periodic dryer vent cleaning does exactly that!
Prevent Fires From Blocked Costa Mesa Vent Dryers
Dryer vent cleaning is a quick, easy process that prevents immensely destructive problems. As leading professional duct cleaners in Costa Mesa, we know how to get every last bit of lint out, and can check the dryer works for any wayward particles. Employing such services at least once per year of light dryer use should be enough to keep fires from happening. If you dry big laundry loads frequently, three times per year would be the most advisable schedule. It’s cheaper than dryer repair, much cheaper than replacement, and infinitely cheaper than a fire! Call anytime for quick dryer vent cleaning services for Costa Mesa residences or commercial properties.