Dryer vent cleaning in Bourbonnais and across Kankakee County

By Jacob Dove, founder of Friendship Chimney Sweep · 29 years in the trade

Why dryer vents catch fire

Lint is nearly pure cellulose and ignites easily. A dryer pushes hot, moist air through a duct that may run 20 or 30 feet with three or four elbows before it reaches the outside. Lint that gets past the screen sticks to the duct walls, especially at the elbows and anywhere the duct sags or is crushed. As the duct narrows, the dryer runs hotter and longer, and eventually the heating element or a spark ignites the lint. The U.S. Fire Administration reports thousands of residential dryer fires each year, and failure to clean is the leading cause. That is the whole reason this service exists.

What we do

1. Measure airflow at the dryer with a flow meter so we have a before number.
2. Disconnect the dryer and clean the transition duct, the dryer’s own lint trap housing, and the exhaust port.
3. Clean the full duct run with rotary brushes on flexible rods, driven from the outside hood back toward the dryer while a vacuum captures the lint. Long runs and multi-story homes get cleaned from both ends.
4. Clear the exterior hood, replace a stuck or broken flap, and remove any nest or screen that should not be there.
5. Reconnect and test, then measure airflow again. You see both numbers.
6. Report the duct condition: material, length, elbows, and anything that needs fixing.

The duct itself is often the problem

In a lot of homes we visit in Bradley, Bourbonnais and Kankakee, the dryer is connected with white vinyl or thin foil flex duct, sometimes 15 feet of it crumpled behind the dryer. Vinyl duct is not permitted for dryer exhaust because it burns, and foil flex traps lint in every ridge. The transition duct should be a listed semi-rigid metal duct no longer than eight feet, and the concealed run should be smooth rigid metal with taped, not screwed, joints. We replace bad transition ducts on the spot and can reroute or replace concealed runs that are crushed, too long, or venting into the attic or crawl space, which we find more often than you would think.

Second-floor laundry rooms

Newer homes with an upstairs laundry often have the longest, most convoluted vent runs: down through a wall, across a joist bay, out through the soffit or roof. These runs clog faster and are harder to clean. We use enough rod to reach the full length and camera-check the run when the airflow numbers do not improve the way they should.

Check it yourself in fifteen seconds

You can confirm the vent is the problem before we ever arrive. Run the dryer warm and try three things:

• Hold a hand at the outside hood. A clear vent pushes a strong, steady stream of warm air and throws the flap wide open. A faint draft, or a flap that barely stirs, means lint has packed the run.
• Time one load of towels. Forty to fifty minutes is normal. When a single load starts needing two turns, the duct is filling — usually long before you ever smell anything.
• Pour water through the lint screen. Rinse it and tip water across the mesh. If the water pools instead of draining straight through, fabric-softener film has coated the screen and is choking the airflow while it still looks clean.

The warnings that get shrugged off

The dramatic signs get noticed. These three get lived with, and each traces back to the same restricted duct:

• Laundry that smells musty coming out of the dryer is a moisture problem, not a dirt one. A packed vent cannot move the damp air outside, so it settles in the duct and drum and the load turns sour the way a forgotten wet towel does. Washing it again will not help; opening the vent will.
• A rattle or a flap knocking is almost always a loose transition joint or the hood flap moving in the wind — a repair, not a clog, but one to look at, because a joint that has pulled loose dumps hot lint straight into the wall cavity.
• An electric bill that climbed with no change in how much you wash is the dryer working overtime against the blockage, burning extra minutes and heat on every load.

How often

Once a year for a typical family, more often for large households, homes with pets, or any vent run longer than 25 feet. If drying times are creeping up between cleanings, the run is probably too long or has too many elbows, and we can usually shorten it.

What we do not do

We do not clean air ducts or HVAC systems. Friendship Chimney Sweep is a chimney and dryer vent company, and we keep it that way so we are good at it. Dryer vent cleaning pricing, including the combination with a chimney sweep on the same visit, is on our pricing page.