One of your home’s most essential necessities may be more dangerous than you think. While your clothes dryer has a lint trap that collects most of the debris from clothes, some of that lint will still travel through the vent system to rest inside your dryer ducts. Being highly combustible, it’s when the lint accumulates that the potential for fire increases greatly.
With over 17,000 house fires caused by clothes dryers each year, the lack of cleaning was responsible for a 34% of those fires, making it the leading cause.
Here are a few tips to help you and your family stay safe:
Choose an outside meeting place (i.e. neighbor’s house, a light post, mailbox, or stop sign) a safe distance in front of your home where everyone can meet after they’ve escaped.
Once you’re out, stay out! Under no circumstances should you ever go back into a burning building. If someone is missing, inform the fire department dispatcher when you call. Firefighters have the skills and equipment to perform rescues.
Closing doors on your way out slows the spread of fire, giving you more time to safely escape.
Unblock Exits. Items that block doors and windows in your home could prevent you from escaping in the event of a home fire.
Don’t run the dryer when you’re not home or are asleep. Only use your washer and dryer when someone who knows how to operate them is home and alert.
Avoid using plastic or foil tubing; dryer ducts should always be metal. With the plastic and foil tubing, low points will form in the tubing where lint will collect at the low point, increasing your risk for a dryer vent fire.
Have your dryer vents professionally cleaned regularly. Dryer vents should be inspected and cleaned yearly, but with increased household size and usage, you may want to clean them more frequently.
Call us today or schedule your dryer vent cleaning online with our NADCA certified technicians!