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Time & Energy-Saving Laundry Tips
The other day, it occurred to my wife and I that ithad been taking a lot longer than usual for our dryer to get our laundry dry.
We pulled the dryer away from the wall and opened up the exhaust tube to find that it was completely filled up with lint, almost about two feet deep! After getting down and dirty emptying that tube, we went to the garage where the other end of the tube comes out to release the moisture that dryers produce. There, we found another build-up of lint, this time about a foot deep.
After cleaning both ends of this tube, we pulled out the small insert at the top of our dryer that collects lint (the one that most people know to clean off on a regular basis) and washed it with warm, soapy water.
As you can guess, all of these steps have dramatically improved the efficiency of our dryer. Loads that previously took 2 hours to dry are now done within about 30 minutes. You can bet that we'll be going through this cleaning routine on a regular basis from now on - probably once every few months.
Just thought I would share this experience with you in case you aren't aware of these time and energy saving laundry tips.
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Comments
Dear Dr. Kim, I don't
Dear Dr. Kim,
I don't need a reply, I know how hard it is to read so many e-mails, but I needed to warn you of another danger connected with not cleaning out the exhaust on the dryer.
Lint can also build up inside the dryer, between the outside casing and the drum. When the dryer is working really hard, and for a long period of time, the lint gets so dry and so hot that it can catch fire.
My husband was once a firefighter, and knew of this happening before, yet we neglected our own dryer to the point that we had a fire. What's even scarier is, we don't even know when it happened!
A few weeks ago, I too complained about the dryer taking too long to get the clothes dry, and when we pulled it away from the wall, the casing showed signs of the fire. After taking the dryer apart, my husband found that the build up of lint inside had caused a mini-fire, that after burning the small amount of lint that had been available, had put itself out. It could have been so much worse. I don't know how many times I've started the dryer, then gone to bed.
Most Sincerely,
Jackie Moll, Crowley, Colorado
Saturday, October 29, 2005 2:09:51 PM
Ben Kim, D.C. said...
Glad u cleaned the dryer!
Did u know that THE NUMBER ONE CAUSE of home fires..is dryers??
I clean mine completely when I change the clocks and replace smoke detector batteries. (how timely that your incident occured, just as we get ready to change the clocks!)
Thanks for a great site!
Shelly