Tossed my go-to trick for dryer vent cleaning after a fire scare

I was out at a house in Arlington last Thursday clearing a dryer vent like I always do with my leaf blower attachment. No big deal, been doing it for years. Well, I fired it up and a big chunk of lint shot out but then I heard this weird crinkling sound. Pulled the machine back and there was a small flame near the motor housing inside the vent. Panicked for a second, killed the power, and used a wet rag to smother it. Turns out the blower had sucked in a loose piece of dryer sheet that got caught on the heating element in the vent from a bad install. I was just a few seconds away from a house fire. Now I always pull the whole vent apart and inspect it before I blow anything through. Has anyone else had a close call like that with a tool they thought was safe?

2 comments

2 Comments

faith6842d ago

Yeah man, that's terrifying stuff. Almost lost a customer's house myself once.

chen.casey2d ago

Respectfully, I see it a little different. Leaf blowers are fine for the basic job, but the real issue here is not the tool you used. It's that the vent had a bad install with a heating element close enough for a dryer sheet to get caught. I've had my leaf blower setup for years and never had a flame issue because I always check for crap like that first. Your close call was more about the faulty setup than the blower itself. Taking the whole vent apart every time sounds like overkill when a quick visual check could have caught that problem.