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Should You Clean Your Dryer Vent Yourself or Hire a Professional?

Keeping your dryer vent free from lint is essential to preventing a house fire. Each year, According to the National Fire Protection Association, more than 15,000 house fires are attributed to dryers each year. Failure to clean the vent is the leading cause of dryer-related fires.

DIY vs professional dryer vent cleaning

If you’re like most homeowners, you look for ways to save money and live within your monthly budget. While cleaning your dryer vent may seem like an easy DIY project, it really depends on how your dryer vent is set up.

If your dryer vent is short and simply constructed, such as running directly from the dryer to the exterior of your home, you can easily clean it with a brush kit. Vents that are four feet or shorter can even be cleaned using your hand, in most cases.

However, some houses have complicated drying venting systems that snake 20, 30 or even 40 feet before reaching the exterior of your house. These types of dryer vents are best left to dryer vent cleaning professionals. With these types of vents, the DIY brush kits you find at home improvement stores can actually cause lint to be wedged in elbows and bends inside the ductwork, complicating the problem and causing lint to accumulate faster.

What the pros can do that you can’t

Professional duct cleaners have equipment and training that the average homeowner doesn’t have access to. They have air lines that attach to an air compressor on their truck and are flexible and long enough to make all the bends in a long dryer vent.

Dryer vent cleaning is not something you want to postpone or ignore. If your setup is complicated or if you just don’t have the time to spend cleaning your dryer vent, head over to Angi to find a dryer vent cleaning company near you. Ideally, you want to clean your vent at least once a year, more often if you do a lot of laundry.

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