Venting a Laundry Room

Learn how to reroute a dryer vent with metal ducting. Find out the easiest way to vent the dryer so that it isn't venting into a living space.

LESLIE: Tom in Alabama needs some help with a laundry room situation. What can we do for you?

TOM IN ALABAMA: Well now, several years ago, we added a 12×24 sunroom to the back of our house. The room sets about 10 to 12 inches off the ground.

TOM: OK.

TOM IN ALABAMA: Our laundry room is also in the back of the house, so you can imagine the vent is going into the laundry room.

TOM: OK.

TOM IN ALABAMA: Well, we always use a sheer stocking on the end to stop the lint and it works, and it works.

TOM: (laughs) So you have this thing venting into the sunroom? Do you see bits of lint floating in the sunlight?

TOM IN ALABAMA: No, no actually it works fine. We just have to open the windows once in a while, put the fans on and everything is fine. But I just …

TOM: Yeah, well it’s probably pretty humid, if nothing else. It’s not a good idea to vent a dryer into any area that’s considered living space.

TOM IN ALABAMA: You’re right. And that’s my question. What I would like to do is run it down under the floor and out but I’ve got 12 feet to run.

TOM: OK.

TOM IN ALABAMA: So, obviously, the clothes are never going to dry.

TOM: Well, they may if you do it correctly. The secret here is to have as few bends as possible. If you can go off the dryer, down and have like one 90-degree bend into that space and out and if you make that duct out of solid, metal ducting – I don’t want you to use the flexible plastic dryer hose; there’s a lot of interior resistance. You’ll also get condensation and it could be a fire hazard. But if you use solid, metal ducting with very little resistance, that’ll be fine. People run that metal ducting 10, 15, 20 feet all the time. It really has to do with the number of turns and how smooth it is. So if you use the metal duct, you’ll be fine doing that, Tom.

TOM IN ALABAMA: Oh, OK. Great. I was wondering if I was going [to have to add] (ph) like an inline – some kind of exhaust or something I could put in but I guess that’d be over-exaggerating.

TOM: That’s overkill. You’re over-thinking it. No, metal ducting is fine and just think about how nice it’s going to be to sit in the sunroom without having the odor of fabric softener in the air. (chuckles)

LESLIE: (chuckles) Which is nice, though.

TOM IN ALABAMA: You got it. That’s exactly what it is. (chuckles) OK. Thank you so much for your time.

TOM: You’re welcome, Tom. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.