Lehi · Utah County
Dryer Vent Cleaning for Lehi Households
People assume a vent in a new house must be clean. Some of the worst ducts we open in this city are in homes that are two years old, and the reason has nothing to do with laundry.
What a new house puts in your duct before you do
During construction, an open duct sitting in a wall is a hole that everything finds. Drywall dust, sawdust, insulation fibers and general site debris go in and stay in. That layer coats the inside of the run, and it is exactly the kind of rough surface that lint grabs onto. Add a few hundred loads and the accumulation is well ahead of where you would expect for the age of the house.
The other new-build issue is the transition hose, the flexible section between the machine and the wall. Foil or plastic flex is cheap, it is what gets fitted, and then the appliance is pushed back into place and the hose is folded flat behind it. A crushed transition can halve your airflow on its own, and nobody has ever seen it, because nobody moves the dryer.
Symptoms, in the order people notice them
- Two cycles to dry one load of towels
- The laundry room feeling warm and damp after a wash day
- The dryer casing hot to the touch
- A faint scorched smell when the machine is running
- Lint visible around the door seal or on the floor behind the machine
The first one costs you money. The last two are the fire risk, and lint is very good fuel sitting in a hot enclosed space.
Townhomes and high-density lots
A large share of Lehi's growth has arrived as townhomes and small-lot detached plans rather than quarter-acre subdivisions, and that shows up in the ductwork. Where houses are close together the duct usually cannot take the short direct route, so it turns and climbs to reach a face where a termination is allowed. More elbows and more length mean lower velocity, and lower velocity means lint settles instead of leaving. Those runs need doing more often than a detached home with a straight shot through the wall, and it is worth knowing that rather than following a generic schedule.
What the visit includes
Rotary brushing of the full run with vacuum extraction so debris leaves the house, inspection and, where needed, replacement of the transition with rigid or semi-rigid duct, a check of the exterior hood and its damper flap, and an airflow reading at the end so the improvement is a number you can see.
Questions
Dryer Vents in Lehi — common questions
Our home is nearly new. Do we really need this?
Have it checked once in the first couple of years. Construction debris and a crushed transition hose are both common in new builds and neither has anything to do with how much laundry you have done.
Can I just clean the lint trap more often?
The trap catches a fraction of what the machine produces. The rest goes into the duct by design. Cleaning the trap every load is good practice and it does not substitute for clearing the run.
How often for a family of five?
Realistically once a year, and sooner if cycle times start creeping up. Volume of laundry drives it more than anything else, and pets in the house move it up as well.
Do you handle townhome vents?
Yes. Those runs tend to be longer and to have more turns than a detached home, so they benefit from it more, and we will tell you if the routing means you should be doing it more frequently than average.
Also in Lehi
Our other services here
Chimney Sweep Inspection Chimney Repair Fireplace Repair Installation Gas Fireplace Caps & Dampers All Lehi services
Nearby