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.
Depending on the amount of contamination and its location, energy consumption could be increased. If the fan blades, evaporator coil or other control components of the system including the air vents are heavily contaminated, the system may have to run much longer to heat or cool the occupied space, wasting a lot of energy.
At City Duct Cleaning Inc. we specialize in cleaning air duct systems as well as all parts of your air handling systems. Every duct cleaning job that we do always includes this work… the fan, the air filter and the air conditioning coil… and this is already included the price.
Don’t let any other air duct cleaner charge you extra for this service. Go with the best. Go with City Duct! (416) 293-1800
Here is another small sampling of the 100′s of testimonials that City Duct Cleaning has acquired over the years. We literally have stacks of these in our office and while we are thrilled with each and every testimonial, it would be impossible to post them all here. Our sincere thanks go out to all of you that have taken the time to call or write to let us know how we are doing.
Some of these people have called in their testimonials, while others have written and then mailed in an air duct cleaning testimonial or even a dryer vent cleaning testimonial. We have also gathered several comments and short reviews from our Quality Control Questionaires that we ask our customers to fill out while we are on site.
“Job was very well done. Neat, courteous and cleaned up work very well. Very good all around.”
“We were very pleased with the work performed. Your crew was on time, professional, and worked very efficiently.”
“Allan did a great job. He worked very hard and explained everything. He took his shoes off every time he entered the house. Thanks, Allan.”
“Thanks for the great job. The sales girl on the phone and your technicians were all great and friendly.”
“Thank you for working us into your busy schedule. Because of your prompt service we were able to move back into our home a few days earlier.”
“I want to express my appreciation for the expert duct cleaning work at my house. I am very pleased at the way your employees handled themselves.”
Over the years we’ve cleaned so many dryer exhaust duct systems, and from time-to-time we get called in to solve a venting problem that no one else could seem to take care of.
These are some shots of a recent dryer vent cleaning that we did in downtown Toronto. The homeowner had two different companies in before us, and both of them charged her too much money and didn’t even solve the problem.
The first guy came with a leaf blower, took the flex off the back of the dryer and blew in there with it. He pissed around for about an hour but didn’t come close to solving the problem with the dryer duct, and still charged her almost $400.
The second company came, and didn’t have a ladder either, even though she told them on the phone that her dryer vent is high up. These guys did a little better but still turned out to be useless. That was another $350.00 and again the problem was not solved. The dryer was not venting because nobody even tried to clean it properly. And these guys call themselves duct cleaners?
The homeowners here were very happy with the job that we did, and that’s because we completely solved the venting problem. I could explain the entire procedure quite easily but I won’t, because I have a real feeling that few duct cleaners in Toronto really know how to do this job properly anyway. So why give them any lessons?
The dryer duct on this job ran above the ceiling on the 2nd floor to the dryer, which was located completely on the opposite side of the house. This home is a semi, so that’s why it didn’t vent straight out the other wall.
This duct was completely plugged when we got there even though two other duct cleaning companies had (attempted to) clean it. We got it done perfectly. It took some doing, but the end result of course… perfection again. Like always.
The homeowner here was so happy with our work that she called us back a week later to do the duct cleaning in her whole house. Making our customers happy and earning their trust and future business is what we do best!
If you have any problems with your dryer duct, call City Duct Cleaning first.
