We’ve got a special ending this month for Dryer Exhaust duct cleaning where you can save 10% for a limited time.
Dryer duct cleaning will improve the safety of your dryer venting system and will help save you money on your energy bills.
If you’ve noticed that your clothes dryer is taking longer than usual to do its job, or if it requires two or more cycles to dry one load then you definitely need this.
Please call our office for a free estimate or to arrange a convenient appointment.
We are pleased to announce that City Duct Cleaning Inc. is a distributer of Lint Alert, which is a new home safety device that basically monitors the air pressure inside your dryer exhaust duct.
Why is this important? The air flow, or pressure inside your dryer vent, is often directly attributed to how dirty your exhaust piping is. A dirty dryer vent will make your clothes dryer consume more energy and is also a potential fire hazard.
The Lint Alert will warn you of any potential problems with your dryer’s venting system so that you can take any corrective action required BEFORE it becomes a problem.
Causes of venting problems could be excessive lint build-up inside the exhaust duct, a plugged dryer exhaust outlet, a crushed flexible dryer vent hose, etc.
Check out this informative video which explains more about Lint Alert.
Lint Alert can be ordered online and is easily installed in minutes.
A magnehelic pressure gauge is a device, similar to a manometer, that is used to measure positive, negative, and differential pressures.
Just as a magnehelic gauge can give your HVAC technician a wealth of information about the operation of your furnace and duct system, it can also provide your duct cleaning technician with valuable information about your dryer exhaust vent too.
The magnehelic gauge can be used to quantify how blocked (or inefficient) a dryer is operating prior to cleaning the dryer vent. After cleaning, the gauge will tell you exactly how much more efficiently the dryer is venting. Technically speaking, dryer manufacturers say to have the dryer vent cleaned if the back pressure readings are greater than 0.6 – 0.75 inches of water column (wci), as indicated on the gauge itself.
The magnehelic gauge measures duct static pressure, which is the pressure the blower produces in the exhaust conduit. In this industry, back pressure is a result of one or more of these conditions: long duct runs, excessive elbows, squished transition hoses, lint buildup, bird nests, rodent nests, and termination hoods that are blocked or feature an inefficient design.
As you can see, cleaning a dryer exhaust duct can be narrowed down to a pretty exact science. Contact City Duct Cleaning today to schedule your dryer exhaust vent cleaning/inspection.
The danger of a dryer duct fire is very real. Check out this video which offers some excellent tips on how to prevent a dryer duct fire from occurring in your home.
Dryer vent cleaning will significantly reduce this fire hazard and will give you peace of mind. It also reduces the amount of time it takes to dry each load, which in turn saves you money on your hydro bill.
If you notice ANY of the following it may be time to schedule a cleaning:
Damper (flappers) on outside exhaust termination barely opens when dryer is on.
Clothes are damp or hotter than usual at the end of the cycle.
Laundry room feels warmer or more humid than normal.
Clothes take an unusually long time to dry.
Outside of dryer is unusually hot.
It has been over a year since you had your dryer vent cleaned.
Did you know that birds will go to almost any length to build a nest where every home owner doesn’t want them to? They will build in your dryer exhaust, your kitchen exhaust, your washroom exhaust and in any type of exterior air duct ventilation you may have.
We have the right ladders, air hoses, air duct tools to safely remove the nest. Don’t try it yourself, give City Duct Cleaning a call.
Did you know that dryer fires are the most common fire in Ontario? This is because most homeowners don’t realize the amount of lint that comes off of their clothes with every cycle. When you dry your clothes most of the lint is trapped in your lint trap. The rest of the lint builds up on the inside of your dryer piping. With this lint collection and the gas that your dryer puts out (even if electric), plus the temperature of your dryer, heats this lint up and dries it out. Now this extremely dry lint is in the line of the gas from the exhaust, which in turn can catch it on fire.
Also with dryers that have long connections this lint can build up so much over time that it actually clogs the ventilation kit to the outside of your home.
If this goes undetected, and the clog has time to keep catching more and more lint, the exhaust line will be so plugged that even the moisture from the dryer will also collect in the lines.
When there is water / condensation in a dryer line, this can create unnecessary replacement of the exhaust line itself.
Even though dryer vents are routinely blocked with lint, birds and squirrels also like to provide this area for nesting and raising babies, because of the small, dark, dry area which can be a frequent cause of dryer vent blockage and our equipment allows us to remove these blockages as well.
From one single dryer in a customer’s home to dozens of commercial machines in a coin laundry, City Duct Cleaning cleans all dryer exhaust ductwork big and small.
And whether the dryers are gas-fired or electric, that doesn’t matter either. They all produce the same amount of lint, and you’d be very surprised to see how quickly the lint builds up in your ductwork.
City Duct Cleaning does dryer duct cleaning in homes, condominiums and in places of business such as laundromats, hotels, retirement homes and more!
There are many factors that will determine the frequency of dryer duct cleaning. These things include the length of your dryer exhaust run or piping, and how often the machine is used.
For the average home, it is recommended that dryer duct cleaning be done once every year. For a commercial application, semi-annual cleaning is often needed.
We have some customers who have us clean their dryer exhaust ductwork monthly. In one case, they do several loads of laundry every day and the length of their dryer duct is fairly long. They have also experienced a dryer duct fire in the past, and since that time they have remained extremely interested in keeping on top of this necessary maintenance. If you have ever had to experience something like this first-hand, then you would realize too, how important this is.
Some tips which would help you to keep your exhaust duct clean would be to clean the dryer lint trap after every load, and to periodically pull out the clothes dryer and remove and clean the flexible duct. This can be cleaned with compressed air if you have it available, or by taking it outside and cleaning it with your garden hose. If the flexible duct seems to be brittle, then replace it immediately.
City Duct Cleaning offers dryer duct cleaning as a stand-alone service or it can be combined with the regular air duct cleaning that you would have done for your whole house. Please call our office for details if you are interested in this service.
Here are some examples of why it makes good sense to keep your air duct systems in good repair. The photos below show some of the recent dryer exhaust ducts that we have cleaned, but the principle applies to any air duct system whether it is for an exhaust system or for heating or cooling in a home or a business.
The first set of photos shows a broken 90 degree elbow that was found by our inspection camera or duct cam. The duct being photographed in this case is in a retirement home. We measured it out and broke a hole in the ceiling, and the dryer lint that fell out of the hole onto the floor was enough to fill five green garbage bags. You wouldn’t believe how much lint there was above that ceiling.
Duct cleaning is obviously our company’s main business, but I’ve been in the HVAC industry for almost 30 years as well, and have installed hundreds of new furnaces, central air conditioners, electronic air cleaners, HEPA systems, humidifiers and even complete duct systems. So doing minor duct repairs such as this one was not difficult for us to manage at all.
I’ve been finding out from my customers over the years that it was quite hard for them to find a heating company who is even interested in doing duct repairs of any kind, and several people have told me that. Most of the companies that they called before they found us said they basically do new installations only.
The same applies to dryer exhaust ducts as well. If you need your’s to be replaced, re-routed or to have a brand new one installed from scatch, or if you need new outside vents with bird screening installed, give us a call. We are here to serve you. Providing excellent service for reasonable costs and winning loyal customers is what we do best.
The second set of photos shows the state of a dryer exhaust duct that we found. The duct system was previously cleaned by another duct cleaning contractor and this is the way they closed the access hole… with duct tape only!
Duct tape is good for many things, but it is definitely not meant to act as a permanent fix in this situation. The hole had very rough edges, so they obviously didn’t even know how to use their sheet metal snips. All that was required to make this one right was to remove all the tape, trim the metal to make it flat, and then to simply screw a metal plate on it. It took me longer to go downstairs to my truck and come back with a metal plate than it did to fix the ductwork.
My best advice when looking for a duct cleaner to do any job, whether it is in your home or in a business or commercial establishment is not to assume that all duct cleaning companies are equally knowledgeable or reputable.
It amazes me sometimes how people can get away with doing such shoddy work. In this case, the duct went for 16 feet, had two turns seperated by 12 feet of duct, and then there was a stack 90 where the duct went into a riser. And from there it went up six floors to a fan on the roof… and there was not a single access hole anywhere else to be found. So how did they clean this duct system? There absolutely has to be access into the duct system at the bottom of the riser. Always. Anyway, we fixed everything up and made this one work like new again.
Getting back to duct repairs, from patching holes to adding a new vent to re-routing or moving duct runs or even your main ducts, at City Duct we do it all, residential or commercial. Call us if you need any of these things done. We’d be glad to help.
There are hundreds of clothes dryer fires every year which causes death, injuries and millions of dollars in destruction.
How many people toss a load of wash in the dryer and then go to work or simply go to bed? Watch this story and you probably won’t want to ever do that again.
What causes dryer fires? Experts say its a combination of heat and lint. Not just the lint you can see on your lint trap but the lint you can’t see in the dryer’s exhaust.
It’s a combination of heat and blockage of proper venting. If there’s a buildup of lint in areas that you may not be aware of, such as inside your dryer exhaust venting or piping, you may have a combustible that’s needed to start that fire.
What can you do to protect yourself from dryer fires?
First, look for the warning signs. Does it take higher temperatures to dry your clothes or multiple drying cycles? Both indicate lint blockage. Clean the lint screen before and after every load of clothes, and clean the dryer exhaust duct and vent periodically.
We recommend that a professional cleaning be done at least every two years, but we do have many customers who have us clean their’s annually. The frequency of cleaning needed would be determined by your particular dryer installation and the amount of use that your clothes dryer normally gets. Everyone who has ever had a dryer duct fire in their home has this service done at least once per year.
More tips to reduce the risk of a dryer duct fire include replacing your plastic flexible dryer venting with rigid or metal material. Also periodically clean behind the dryer where lint can build up.
If you are in the Toronto area and require a dryer duct cleaning or wish to have your dryer exhaust duct replaced or just inspected, then give us a call. This service is noticeably more cheaper or cost-effective when it is combined with our complete home air duct cleaning service.
