Is your clothes dryer at risk for a fire?

Posted Monday, September 30th, 2019

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!

Simple & Quick Ways to Prevent House Fires

Posted Tuesday, October 11th, 2016

It’s Fire Season Here In Michigan

Every year, thousands of homes across Michigan are affected by house fires. Clogged dryer vents, open fireplaces, cooking mishaps, and many other hazards all increase your risk of a destructive fire affecting your home. Fortunately, there are a few Simple & Quick steps you can take to help protect yourself!

What You Can Do To Prevent House Fires

Each October, the NFPA makes fire safety front and center in order to help prevent fire disasters. Modernistic is proud to support Fire Prevention Month, and we would like to offer these Simple & Quick tips to help prevent house fires:

Check your smoke alarms!

Test and replace the batteries in all of your smoke detectors before they start chirping. Here’s an easy way to remember: change your smoke alarm batteries along with your clocks whenever there’s a time change.

Know where you keep your fire extinguishers!

Keep at least one fire extinguisher on each level of your home, and keep up on their expiration dates.

Don’t leave your heaters on!

Turn off portable heaters when you leave the room or when you go to bed. When you shut the lights off, shut off the heaters too!

Stay alert in the kitchen!

Keep a close eye on anything you are cooking, and try not to leave the kitchen while heating food.

Get the lint out!

Have Modernistic professionally clean your dryer vent once a year to remove flammable lint and debris.

No one wants to have to rebuild after a fire; We would know, Modernistic has been Fire Damage Restoration experts for years! By taking a few easy precautions you can avoid smoke odor, burn damage, and other complications from house fires. To learn more about Fire Damage Restoration, see our fire damage page here. Stay safe this season with these tips from Modernistic!

Why a dirty dryer vent is a safety hazard in your home

Posted Monday, September 26th, 2016

Oxford, Michigan: did you know your dryer vent could put your home at risk?

How much time do you spend thinking about your dryer vent? Probably not a lot, and that’s OK… most of the time. However, if you’ve never given your dyer vent any thought at all, it may surprise you to learn that a dirty dryer vent is a safety hazard in your home. Poorly-cleaned clothes dryers cause thousands of house fires every year, resulting in death, injury, and millions of dollars of property loss for many Americans.

Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to address this hazard in your home.

What can you do to prevent a house fire?

Lint is the usual suspect in a dryer fire. Uncleaned lint screens, or lint built up inside or around the dryer itself, can ignite if a dryer runs too hot for too long. However, the biggest risk comes from the vent itself. Here are some things to look out for:

  • Dryer vents made from flexible tubing, such as foil or plastic, collect lint in areas where it sags or bends. Long dryer vents are also a risk, especially if they make several twists and turns before venting outside. Examine your current setup, and replace any flexible tubing with a rigid, metal duct.
  • Pay attention to how well your dryer runs. If it feels exceptionally hot during a cycle, or if it regularly takes more than one cycle to dry your clothes, it may be time to clean your dryer vent.
  • Does your laundry room feel damp or have a musty odor? A blocked dryer vent can cause warm, humid air to backup into your laundry room. This could be due to lint, but it can also mean an animal has chosen to nest in your vent. Have a professional come in to clean it out.
  • Be careful if you’re washing clothes which have been stained with a volatile agent. If you’ve spilled gasoline, cooking oil, alcohol, cleaning agents, or other flammable substances on your clothes, wash them twice and line dry.
  • Don’t overload your dryer, and don’t dry anything against the manufacturer’s instructions. The same applies for any item with foam, plastic, or rubber, such as a bathroom mat with a slip-proof backing.

Have a professional clean your dryer vent regularly

If you aren’t sure when you last had your dryer vent cleaned, or if you’ve noticed any of the warning signs above, bring in a professional to take a look. Modernistic offers dryer vent cleaning in the Oxford, Michigan area, as well as throughout areas of southern and central Michigan. And if you’re having us in to clean your air ducts, ask about including a dryer vent cleaning in the service. Contact us today to schedule an appointment.