Clean Your Dryer Vent to Prevent House Fires
It's a quick and fun chore that can save you from ruin.
In the prepping world we often talk about how to leave your home after an emergency, but wouldn’t it be a lot better to just prevent the emergency in the first place? One potential danger that might surprise you is dryer lint.
It’s well-known that dryer lint is a cheap and readily available source of tinder for your fire kit, but the flip side is that it can be a ticking time bomb in your house, and causes about 27% of house fires. You probably know to clean the lint filter in your dryer, but you should also clean out the vent pipe once a year as well. Right now is the perfect time to clean it out.
To do this, you need a special brush that is long and flexible enough to worm its way through the vent. I use this one, which attaches to a power drill.
Using it is pretty simple:
Attach several sections together and the brush at the end.
Start feeding it, brush end first, into the vent from the outside.
Keep attaching sections until you reach the end of the vent.
Screw on the drill bit attachment and chuck it in your drill.
Set your drill to spin clockwise.
Pull the trigger.
Pull!
(In the video above, I twisted up the brush pole while fumbling around recording.)
You’ll be shocked at the piles of highly flammable lint that come out.
Here’s a bonus tip: After using the brush, pull your dryer out from the wall, disconnect the vent hose, and shoot a leaf blower down that end of the pipe, which will blast even more lint out of your house. While you’re at it, there’s probably a ton of lint under and behind your dryer to clean up.
This only takes a few minutes, it’s pretty fun, and it keeps your house from catching on fire. You have no excuse not to clean your dryer vents.