Dryer vent

[scott degroot]

We have front a loading washer and electric dryer. The wife wants to stack them to make more room in the laundry room...no big deal. My question is this...the dryer vent is located on the back of the dryer at the bottom and the house portion is at the bottom of the wall, Is it safe to run the dryer vent from the dryer down to the bottom of the wall where it then has to turn up to exit through the roof or should I open up the wall and move the vent opening in the wall up to meet the dryer?

 

[Wes Davis]

Perfectly safe. For your own peace of mind every six months pull the dryer vent hose and clean out any lint that might be accumulating at the bottom of the bend. Heck if you really want to get involved get the cleaning kit to clean out the entire vent stack from wall to roof. Your dryer will run much more efficiently. You can also pay any number of companies to do this for you once a year. Not expensive at all.







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[H D]

That will most likely be fine, with some considerations:



Make sure that you do a thorough cleaning of the pipes for lint and that there is a free flow of air. The more bends there are and the longer the distance, the more places for lint to get caught. Accumulated lint is a fire hazard and is incredibly flammable. Moving it up the wall may help with the number of bends you'll have but it most likely won't make a big difference in the distance. You don't want your pipe to be longer than 25 ft. to the exit and each 90* bend you have is equivalent to 5 feet. If those two 90* bends to get to the bottom of the wall put you over 25 ft. to exit, I'd go ahead and move the vent opening up to directly behind the exhaust on the dryer.

 

[Gavin Allan]

Use hard metal ducting. I prefer galvanized steel ducting over aluminum, but that is just me. Do not use the plastic flixible tubing. It clogs up fast and has too much restriction. Be sure to tape all joints in the duct- do not screw them together, as the screws sticking into the duct will trap big balls of lint and clog it up. Try to keep the run as short as possible. Be sure the outdoor vent termination is non-restrictive (they used to use vents with a narrow opening- most newer ones are a full 4" deep. Always vent outdoors. Do not vent to an attic or crawlspace unless you don't mid if your house burns to the ground and/or grows black mold due to the humidity.

 

[scott degroot]

Thanks for the input guys. After looking more at the space that we have between the back of the washer/dryer adn the wall I have decided that it is too tight to try and squeeze a hose, while making 2 bends, effectively back there unless we pull the units out another 6 inches. We are trying to free up some room and pulling the units further out would negate what we are trying to accomplish so I think I will just go into the wall and move the vent up to the height I need.

 

[Gavin Allan]

Sheetrock work is so fun!!! :rofl: