A white louvered dryer or exhaust vent screwed into dark navy horizontal lap siding, with a blurred sunset and silhouetted trees visible in the background.

Dryer Vent Cleaning in Westerly, RI

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A grey plastic exhaust vent mounted on dark blue vinyl house siding, with a blurred dusk sky and bare tree visible in the background.

Cold vents in Westerly turn lint into a wall

Your dryer pushes out warm, wet air, and that air has to travel through a vent that sits in cold space most of the year. Winter nights here average 24°F from December through February, so the vent walls are cold too. The warm air cools fast, and the moisture in it makes the lint stick instead of blowing through to the outside.

Layer by layer, that wet lint narrows the path the air has to take. A vent that is choked down like this makes the dryer run longer to do the same job, and it gives the lint something to catch fire on.

24°F: the average winter night, and cold vents catch damp lint
8 months: October through May, the vent stays cold

Line-art isometric illustration of a front-loading washer or dryer beside a wall opening, with a flexible corrugated duct running from the appliance to a rectangular vent box on the wall.

Your vent runs coldest from November through March.

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NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals

How often should a dryer vent be cleaned?: Once a year for most households. If you run loads almost every day, or you have a long duct run to the outside, check it more often since lint builds up faster. A vent that is clear moves air and moisture out of the house instead of trapping it in the duct.
Can I clean my dryer vent myself?: You can clean the lint trap and the first few feet of duct behind the dryer yourself. Pull the dryer out, disconnect the duct, and clear what you can reach with a brush made for this. The rest of the run, especially where it bends or climbs to an outside wall, is hard to reach and easy to damage, so a contractor with the right length of rod and a camera can tell you if it is actually clear all the way out.
What are the signs of a clogged dryer vent?: Clothes that take more than one cycle to dry, a dryer that runs hot to the touch, and a burnt smell partway through the cycle. The outside vent hood flap should open when the dryer runs. If it barely moves, or you see lint gathered around it, air is not getting out and the duct needs a look.

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