dryer venting - WTF contractor?

[simpsongal]

Our clothes dryer died a couple months ago (heating coil went), we replaced it but it was still taking 3 hours to dry clothes.  So I figured it was the vent.  We had moved our dryer upstairs ~5 years ago and the vent goes out the side of the house. Probably runs 12 feet through the attic.  I suspected a bird's nest.

The dryer vent cleaners came yesterday, they cleared out the bird's nest but also found the flexible metal tube used to vent is not up to code (super flimsy), annnnnnd the contractor probably had 25-30 feet of length when they only needed like 12. Instead of cutting the tube like a normal person, the contractor just wrapped it around a bunch of joists in the attic to deal w/the extra length.  W.T.F.? Not like dryer venting is important for preventing fires or anything [sarcasm]. So the guys shortened it yesterday but we're going to have them come back to install a proper vent.

I know I can't hold a candle to Mrs. Jacinthe's do-it-yourself WTF discoveries but I had to report on this one.

[mrs.jacinthe]

That is absolutely ridiculous. Dryer venting is something I'm glad we got to do ourselves in this house, if you know what I mean. LOL

But seriously, flexible tubing is not great for dryers, people. I wish they would stop selling it.

[thatgirl2478]

That is ridiculous! We have a small (about a foot) of flexible ducting for our dryer, but it's not the shiny papery one, it's the metal one.

The previous owners used that flexible ducting to run the bathroom vents out the side of the house. On one hand YAY that they actually vented them outside (the builder of the house didn't), but on the other hand WTF why would you use flexible ducting? Wherever it dips you get puddles of water...

[candreco]

Oh, man, this brings back memories of moving into our last house where the dryer dried slow, and every time we ran the dryer there was a thump-thump-thump in the ceiling in the bathroom next to the laundry room. We cut into the ceiling and find that it's a chunk of flexible duct sagging between two joists, completely filled with water. We drained like 3 gallons of water out of that, and installed solid duct. While I was 8 months pregnant and panicking that we wouldn't be able to do laundry and our baby's life would be ruined because she wouldn't have clean onesies, lol.

I was thrilled when this house had the dryer hookups located on an exterior wall, with the vent 4 feet above it. I can see every inch of dryer vent, and it's vertical.

[simpsongal]

candreco, OMG! I like my 2nd floor laundry but I miss having it on an exterior wall w/10 inches of dryer vent

On the up side, I feel like I get every cent worth of the $150 for those poor guys to clean and fix it (fix it for now, we'll pay dearly for the proper replacement duct soon).

[dancelnow]

Aug 28, 2017 13:53:12 GMT -5 simpsongal said:

candreco, OMG! I like my 2nd floor laundry but I miss having it on an exterior wall w/10 inches of dryer vent

On the up side, I feel like I get every cent worth of the $150 for those poor guys to clean and fix it (fix it for now, we'll pay dearly for the proper replacement duct soon).

I feel you on that. I just paid $189 for emergency cleaning of one through my roof and scheduled $700 to install a proper vent through the roof that won't dump lint into my attic. Oh, and add $1200 to repair and properly cap the chimney while they're up there

[definitelyO]

oh man!! that sucks! our dryer installers didn't use enough and I wondered why it smelled like damp clothes and bounce when I dried clothes the first 2 times. the tubing didn't reach the vent and it was venting back into the laundry room!