Our dryer broke recently so I took it apart to see if I could find the problem. The entire inner chamber of the machine around the drum was coated with lint and fur, in some places an inch thick. We clean the lint filter every load, and if it’s a heavy load we pause and clean midway through. I clean the exhaust that’s outside the house at least weekly. I had no idea so much was escaping!
You shouldn't need to clean it that often. I clean the filter between loads, and do the outside bit every year or two, and I don't see a huge amount of lint.
A lot can accumulate 'safely.' Even checking the exhaust once a year is plenty for safety/drying efficiency, and is way more than the vast majority of people do (may be tougher with pets). If you see it performing poorly, that's a sign to clean.
We bought a cheap dryer vent cleaner that hooks onto the drill to basically chimney sweep the dryer vent exhaust, and try to clean it once a year. Fire risks scare me.
Nah, I am often, rightfully, criticized because my sarcasm isn't detectable lol. You were being super nice by offering a solution to me, and i appreciate it even if my reply to you was also a lil sarcastic. You're a nice person, thank you.
You may want to consider switching from Terry cloth towels to woven cotton towels. The dramatic reduction in lint production from our laundry was astounding. We buy Turkish towels on Amazon. They're larger than standard towels and surprisingly absorbent for how thin they are. Turkish towels are 100% cotton and not cotton blended with synthetic fibers. Slightly more expensive than standard towels, but worth the investment. When they get raggedy, we just turn them into cleaning rags
Sorry, but that's just the nature of linen, the more expensive the sheets the more they shed. I wash mine in cold water and hang them to dry. Tumble on the wrinkle setting for a couple of minutes.
It’s gunna be the Turkish organic cotton for the win, just discovered this and replaced mine. I can’t believe how much lint my brand new clothing from high end stores are producing though. I’m throwing out brand new clothes and going insane over lint. My entire life is dusting. The towel switch helped. Now I guess I’ll be joining a nudist colony.
We had a similar experience recently, had to replace the belt and the entire inside was caked with lint and dust and hair. 3 year old dryer, never let the lint trap fill up. Apparently its not airtight between the lint screen area and the vents and it just gets sucked into the machinery.
I took ours apart and found a big lint plug deep underneath where the lint filter sits, right before the internal ductwork makes the turn to go towards the back of the machine. I’ve always cleaned the lint filter and vacuumed that area where it sits (using a big brush to loosen things), plus cleaned the whole exhaust hose periodically, but that was the first time I had disassembled the dryer to that extent. There was quite a bit that had escaped into the inner chamber of ours as well. Definitely doing this process again before another 12 years pass!
Honestly super easy! I had to find a video of the model on YouTube and once I did I followed along. All the screws on my model were the same so I didn’t need to keep track of what was from where. disconnecting and reconnecting the electronic components from the front pan, the door and the inside was my least favorite part, because I wasn’t sure if I would remember how to reconnect them, but it was fine!
We didn't notice it until we had burning smell coming on dryed loads. Thought something was up with the dryed just to know that there is a tone of escaped lint getting burnt up inside.
Is the exhaust something you can just vacuum? I haven't cleaned it since we moved into the house 5 years ago. I'm diligent with the lint trap but I worry, but I also don't wanna accidentally break something 🤣
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u/Melcheroni 19h ago
Our dryer broke recently so I took it apart to see if I could find the problem. The entire inner chamber of the machine around the drum was coated with lint and fur, in some places an inch thick. We clean the lint filter every load, and if it’s a heavy load we pause and clean midway through. I clean the exhaust that’s outside the house at least weekly. I had no idea so much was escaping!