The other day I met an owner at one of his properties who was having a serious water problem with his dryer vent. After meeting the owner, he took me to his basement and opened a closet. A soft dryer hose hangs in front of me in a big U. The boss said, I think there is water here. Apparently, that’s why his tenants have trouble drying their clothes.
I grabbed the hose and moved it back and forth, and the water rattled and felt like two gallons of water in the exhaust. Due to the weight of such a large amount of water, the pipes sank several feet above the floor. Luckily the hose hadn’t broken yet and there were water stains all over the floor.
I told the homeowner, “The builder must be lazy because he shouldn’t have that flexible dryer duct in the wall. He should have had a rigid metal dryer duct.” Unfortunately, the builder’s Flexible https://energyhomeservice.ca/air-duct-cleaning/dryer-vent/ foil ducts are sometimes installed in the walls, and even sometimes leaking from the dryer ducts into the attic can be very dangerous.
When a flexible vent is installed instead of a rigid metal type if a little water condenses when drying clothes, this water can collect and cause the vent tube to sag. When the pipe is flooded, it collects more and more water. Unfortunately, when it bends, the water ends up completely blocking the vent tube, completely blocking airflow. When airflow is blocked by standing water, it can severely damage the dryer and render even a powerful new dryer useless.
Sometimes water can also enter from the outside when the outer cover is not properly sealed and rainwater enters the dryer pipes. An easy fix is to seal the exterior vent cover with clear caulk or install a new cover. This homeowner’s exterior vent was covered under an overhang where the rainwater didn’t reach, so the water must have fallen off his clothing. Normally condensation in the pipe is not a problem, but because it has a flexible hose inside the wall, the smallest amount of water will cause more water to sink and get trapped.
I grabbed a large plastic bucket, put it under the sagging vent, pulled out a pen, and dumped it down a hole. It almost feels like a surgical operation. The water leaves the pipe and goes into the bucket with the lint mixture. After all the water was gone, I just taped the hose with breathable tape.
After fixing the water problem, I followed my normal cleaning routine to brush the vent from the inside, put my blower in the vent, and start brushing the outside. More lines were blown, and the airflow was finally restored in the duct and blowing pretty hard.
