LESLIE: Tommy in Nebraska, you’ve got The Money Pit. How can we help you today?
TOMMY: My question concerns my dryer. I moved into a house that had the washer and dryer already here in my laundry room. And when I was cleaning back behind the dryer – the dryer hose is aluminum type and it’s attached with tape. Obviously, not done correctly. And what I want to know is what would you recommend? Is there a better dryer-vent hose or a tube of some kind? It’s a fairly short distance from the wall to the dryer.
TOM: If it’s the flexible aluminum hose, then that – I would probably go ahead and put that back in. If it’s vinyl, I would not. But you’re sure it’s aluminum, right?
TOMMY: It is. It’s like shiny aluminum foil.
LESLIE: Yeah. And that’s the one that you want there, because that’s heat-resistant.
TOMMY: Oh, you do. OK.
LESLIE: Yes.
TOMMY: Rather than the white vinyl? It’s better than the white vinyl.
LESLIE: Right. Because the white vinyl could overheat and potentially cause a fire hazard. So the aluminum one is great because it won’t hold onto all of that heat.
Now, the question is, where does your dryer hose vent to? Does it go to the outside? Has it been cleaned in a while? You know, these are all maintenance things that you need to be doing for your dryer.
TOMMY: Right, Leslie. And that’s what I wanted to do because I am so afraid of fire hazards. OK, so I need to detach it? And it is vented to an outside vent.
TOM: So what you should do is get a dryer-vent cleaning brush. There is one that’s available online called the Gardus LintEater. Leslie and I both have one of these brushes. They’re really cool. They’re like brushes on the end of fiberglass rods. And you stick them into a drill and just spin them into the vent and go back and forth and pull them out.
TOMMY: Oh, my goodness.
TOM: And you’d be amazed how much dust comes out of those things. So that’s one – I’m sure you could probably find it at a home center or at a hardware store, as well. But a dryer-duct cleaning brush is what you really need for that.
TOMMY: OK. And then when I reattach that hose to the vent and then to the dryer, obviously I don’t want to use tape, which is what they’ve used.
TOM: There’s a big bracket that is sort of like a clamp that fits around that. And it goes over the hose and the hose goes over the vent and then it all sort of screws together. And I’m sure you could also find those at a home center or a hardware store. No, you should definitely not tape it together.
TOMMY: I will do that. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
TOM: Thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
I just moved in this house and I bought an aluminum dryer hose I hooked it up to my dryer and it sparked a flame at the bottom of the dryer and a plug that I had plugged in also the previous owner made an adapter to make the vent long enough to reach the holes that they had prior I think it was made out of 10 should I take down that and just look at the holes up to the regular vent that goes outside is that white sparked
Why did when I hooked up an aluminum hose to my dryer it sparked a flame at the bottom of the dryer and spark the plug I just moved in this house and they had a 10 adapter to make it longer connected to the vent going outside is that why it’s parked should I take the homemade adapter off and just use the aluminum foil dryer adapter