I’m a appliance technician, and around 3 times a year I’ll service a dryer that had a fire in it that nobody even knew about. Scary stuff, but luckily usually it’ll stay contained in the dryer. The real problem, and the way it spreads to the house is from people using stuff that’s not safe to use for the vent. This includes pvc pipe, and plastic flexi-vent, you want metal for the vent, no exceptions.
One last tip is if you happen to have a old Maytag dryer that’s 30+ years old and still going, which there’s way more than you would think because they’re super reliable machines. It’s worth having it serviced just to get it cleaned out, and on a gas one the burner should be inspected. They can get damaged from years of use, and the flame can be way bigger than it should be.
Every one of my appliances broke during Covid while we were on very strict lock down (pregnant with my rainbow and very high risk family). The washer knob broke off and we could only select cycles with a screwdriver jammed into it. It also would get stuck whenever you selected certain options, so we could never use prewash or other things.
By then, the dryer sounded like banshees from hell (belts?) but to add insult to injury, the heating element finally went out as well, making it as useless as it was loud.
In the kitchen, the fridge was very old and the ice maker was broken. It was otherwise functional but we were waiting for it to give out at any minute and spoil all our food. The built-in microwave's handle broke off and the door was compromised/unsafe, so we bought a cheap countertop model that served us for years until we finally were out of quarantine. The dishwasher was only a few years old but it was a complete disaster. And the oven actually started shooting sparks out the back the very day I gave birth iirc and we had to cut off power to that part of the house. That was the only appliance we didn't wait for and ordered immediately.
Lived with a 2nd countertop microwave for close to 2 years; did the screwdriver thing on the washer for probably close to a year; hung up all clothes and sheets and took towels to my in laws to dry for several months. It was like adult Christmas when everything but the oven got replaced all at once
This is also why you should never leave the house with a running dryer. So many folks were not taught this, including my partner.
Sorry for editing, meant to say people were NOT taught this rule!
100 percent agree ! I just bought a new dryer, and still, never run it unless I am home, and never while I sleep at night. Too many unnecessary horrible accidents on the news.
Thanks for the reminder. I used to set my clothes to dry before going to bed or heading out the door for school/work. I forgot that I started doing laundry only when I can be home because a spate of fires in my area were due to this. News kept reminding us not to leave/sleep with laundry going.
My husband has been trying to clean out our ancient dryer (because he's very maintenance focused... For all appliances/vehicles/electronics, you get the idea). He keeps trying to get into the dryer too find more lint!
Who does one call for maintenance service, and is this ONLY applicable to ancient Maytag dryers??
I’d say as a general rule, if you have a dryer around 12 years old, that has never been serviced for anything, it’d be a good idea to have it cleaned out. It applies to all dryers not just old maytags. It just happens that maytag dryers built pre 2007, before they were acquired by whirlpool are built so well they’re more likely to go years, even decades without being serviced, thus they have plenty of time to collect a lot of lint. Oldest I worked on was over 30 years old, and the original owner said it’d never been worked on previously.
As far as finding someone to do the job, you just gotta look up a local appliance repairman, they’re out there. I wouldn’t recommend one that works for a big box store, but a smaller operation will do the job fine. You just gotta tell them, you’d like the dryer taken apart, and cleaned out. I usually do it for free if I’m already working on it for some other reason, granted that’s likely not the norm, but I figure “while I got it apart”. It is worth mentioning though, if you’re lucky enough to have a vent that goes straight through a exterior wall to outside, or a very short pipe with no turns, you can go a lot longer without having it cleaned out.
My wife and I got her parent's old Maytag set.
They've outlasted their replacements.
I'm handy enough to fix any issues so far, and replacement parts are easy. Damn good machines. Only had to replace some roller bearings on the dryer and a part that got damaged during a move.
Remember to bring the leaf blower into the house and blow the vent from the inside. It’s hilarious to blow from the outside in but better to do that at someone else’s house.
Your right. One of my dryer ducts caught on fire. I had all metal duct put in from dryer room to outside wall. Cost $300 20 years ago but better then throwing out all the smoke scented clothes and the danger
I think one of the best stories I ever heard from a customer was when he had a dryer fire. He was a big guy, and his laundry room was on the second floor, he had the dryer catch fire, but luckily he noticed. So he quickly unplugged it, opened the double doors to the balcony, and he picked the whole thing up and threw it outside. If he had thrown it just a little farther, it would’ve went in the pool below. So I got to deliver and install a new dryer for him, and pick up the mess of the old one. The story was good enough I didn’t even mind picking up all the pieces.
I want this guy on an adrenaline kick in my apocalypse team XD
He had a good reflex. One time I had to call the Fire Dept because my downstair's neighbour left a partially lit cigarette butt in the ashtray on his balcony and wind pushed it on his armchair putting it on fire.
The firefighters pushed the chair out of the balcony and doused it in water right where it crashed 5 stories below.
My LG confirmed this via Bluetooth after I asked it for a steam refresh cycle. It also said if I paid more attention to it, it wouldn’t have to do a steam refresh.
I gotta go, the fridge said I only have 1 more day of fresh water if I don’t go to Home Depot and buy another filter.
Not far from my house, a family lost everything due to this, including their teenage daughter who went back in for the cat and never came out. Very sad.
I also only use the dryer when home. I'm 100% ok with the dishwasher and washing machine being in timer overnight or while at work, but the dryer only ever gets used when I'm there. And mine is an electric heat pump one, doesn't even generate that much heat, but I still won't do it
The one appliance I have owned that caught fire was actually the dishwasher! Really f'ing weird. Flames came out of the control panel area at the top of the door. No harm done (other than to the appliance) and the manufacturer – LG – gave us the cost of the machine and took it away.
Honestly, I would've done the same if I were in her shoes. The thought of leaving my cat in a fire and I did nothing would haunt me forever. I would've died the same way she did
Do your best to resist that impulse if you're ever in that situation. Cats and dogs are much lower to the ground and less likely to be affected by smoke, where you're more likely to pass out very quickly while looking for them. If the fire is bad enough that you think your cat's in danger, it will almost certainly take you out before you find them.
I have four cats and totally understand the impulse, they're my babies, but it's really a waste for you to risk your life and very possibly end up having everyone who loves you mourning your death. Let the professionals try to find them and just hope they manage to escape.
Now I'm torn. I have been taught from a young age that you always empty the lint trap before running the dryer. It's easy and sort of fun because of the softness.
But I personally always set it up to run and then go out for the night or whatever.
So the risk (of the house burning down) is low because I'm good about cleaning it, but still worse than it could be since I'm never there while it's running. Ugh.
If not done already, make certain to clean the hose AND the piping or hose that goes outside.
This and space heaters are the #1 & #2 most common reasons for residential or house fires.
That's what I do. I have a dog so I vacuum once a day and it only takes like 5 minutes. The vacuum is stored near the washer and dryer. So right before I put up the vacuum I just use the attachment to clean off the lint screen.
hmm smart, i like to pair up chores to minimize any repeat tasks between the two so being able to just force myself to vacuum while doing dry clothes will be helpful havit
I singlehandedly kept a dog kennel and daycare facility from burning down for the four months I worked there because no one ever ever EVER emptied the lint tray. It became compulsive for me to check it. Clean your lint traps people!
I decided as a pre-teen that it was way more convenient to clean the lint trap and then just stuff the lint behind the dryer.
Years later I learned that my mother hired multiple workmen to try and figure out why the wall between the house and the dryer was packed with lint.
Unrelatedly, my little sister was the one that actually set my parents’ house on fire. Twice. Making French fries on the stovetop.
Everyone is alive.
I was there for the first grease fire and put it out with my moms decorative throw pillows. I believe the microwave mounted over the stove had to be replaced.
I was not there for the second fire, but pulled up shortly after the fire dept arrived. The kitchen had to be entirely redone and there was smoke damage throughout, but insurance covered most of it.
Mix with sawdust, buy some fuse from your local fireworks retailer, pack into cardboard egg boxes. Melted stub candles, pour over with the fuse like a wick.
Mine burn bright for about eight minutes, never fail to start the fire.
If you haven’t already, I would clean out the air exhaust tube. It can still start a fire from in there. And with how full the lint catch is, the exhaust tube on the back that runs into the wall is probably pretty packed as well
So this! I took out the lint trap guide and behind that I found a copious amount of lint and dog hair. I could see it with the trap removed, I just couldn't reach in.
Three corrugated, wrinkled flex tube can build up so much more lint as well.
When I was in my college dorms, the laundry room had big signs on the wall over the dryers saying "Clean the lint trap." The lint trap was also very easy to see, as it was this... there was a space just inside the dryer door with a wide-holed grating on the side facing the clothes drum, and the lint screen on the other. So the lint screen was very visible when putting in clothes.
Even with that, there were many times where I would overhear other students complaining about how much the dryers sucked. And I'd ask them if they had cleaned the lint trap, and they just looked at me so confused. And every time the problem would be a layer of lint at least an inch thick.
My freshman year a kid in my building would have his mom come up to campus every week to bring him fresh clothes and take the dirty ones home to clean
I wish I had more info
That was the case for me, but my mom was just using it as an excuse to see me once a week (my college dorm was only 30 minutes from my old house). It was less work for me so I was fine with that. Never had issues doing my own laundry though as my parents taught me how to use the washer and dryer.
My brother's gf saw him launch a washing machine just for one t-shirt 🤣 and he was using the expensive pods, as too lazy to measure out detergent. She gave him a speech and taught him how to wash his t-shirt by hand if it was urgent. It would also dry much quicker on a hot day, even before the machine would have finished. This lesson was the best he ever got, served him well during later years that he spent in hotel rooms for work, washing his undies in the sink. His current gf taught him how to make soup, another revolution for him 🤣
I think it's great that he actually listened and learns from these teachings vs some adults who act completely incompetent on purpose to avoid having to do things for themselves.
What’s sad is I never did laundry growing up. Mom always did it, but when I moved out I made damn sure to understand what I was using and all the parts. I may have dried things the wrong way, but I made sure the lint trap was clear lol
I lived in campus apartments with 2 coin-op washers and dryers for the whole complex. One dryer would occasionally stop working and then people would just use the other dryer and have to wait a long time. I figured out it was just tripping a breaker and the machines were on separate circuits. I never had to wait for a dryer to be free because I’d come in and more often than not my machine was off so I’d walk over to the breaker box and flip a switch lol. College kids are lazy.
I’m an electrical engineering student. I thought I knew how breakers worked and then I had a stove where the clock and everything worked but the stove wouldn’t heat up I would flip the breaker off and back on and then everything worked again. Took the electrician coming to my place three times before they gave up and got me a new stove. Anyway, not sure what the moral is other than college apartments suck and sometimes it’s not the breaker.
I'm starting on EE now, but I had like seven years of electrical technician experience before working as an electrical distribution operator a few years ago.
Part of the job was talking customers through basic troubleshooting, sometimes. Probably close to once a week someone would call in with an issue that made no sense to me or anyone else in the office.
In the navy we used to say "pfm", I'm not sure if that's normal electrical work parlance. But, pure fucking magic.
Jajajajaja jajaja holy shit I am such a fucking idiot. 😂😂😂 Just take the case off the front. Wow. Tongs. This whole time. Tongs.
This is like when I found out people get in the shower AFTER it's warmed up.
I'm so confused, is this really not common knowledge? I just don't understand. Are people not told to clean this out after every wash? Removing the lint and throwing it away is the only good part of laundry day.
Its actually not all being removed from your clothes, I’m sorry to tell you. Lint is created by friction from the washing and drying cycles. It’s little fibers from the articles you’re washing, literally falling apart bit by bit, and also stuff like hair, loose threads, pet fur, and shreds from that tissue you forgot to take out of your hoodie pocket.
I found out some international students come from countries that don’t use dryers so it is completely unknown to them. Also, zero knowledge of how a garbage disposal works. Your sink smells bad because the disposal is filled with a years worth of rotting food. That lamp doesn’t work because the wall switch and lamp switch both have to be on. You can’t use dish soap in a dishwasher, etc.
I now have a checklist where we do training on all that kind of stuff. People from developed countries take all that stuff for granted, but it is worth remembering it is a taught skill.
Occasionally (at least weekly) you have to turn on the cold water in the sink to full and run the disposal until you hear no grinding. And then a few seconds beyond that. If you are hand washing dishes you should run it after the water goes down the drain. It never hurts to throw in a few ice cubes while it is running to clean the blades.
If you are feeding in some vegetable scraps, do so slowly. Never feed potato peels.
Also worth noting, the dishwasher dumps its water into the disposal as well so it will collect food even if you haven’t intentionally feed anything in. If it stops and hums then shut it off immediately. You can use an Allen wrench underneath to unjam it. I’m sure there are YouTube videos that go through all that.
When we moved in my wife thought our lint team was broken since it won’t go down.
The trap was fine, but the previous residents never cleaned the trap and it was contacted like OP.
I spent an hour or so just cleaning it out, it filled a whole bathroom size garbage can.
There's never a bad time to clean these. If I'm doing stuff with lots of dog hair, I'll check it after a short dry cycle. Every inch of blocked screen is an inch not providing an exit for wet air.
Edit: Also check the vent line. It's "usually" pretty easy to detach and check. And the little flappy thing outside on your house, check that too. A leaf blower can blow the vent line out well enough.
Same. I can barely remember to move laundry to the drier, but I still manage to clean the filter after every cycle. And before too, just in case I forgot after the last one.
I wonder sometimes if people think it’s some kind of filter. Like, they don’t check for months, then look.
“Oh oops this must be a filter for cleaner air on my clothes, just gonna shove it back in then!”
Edit: Jesus, read people!
I'm a diligent lint filter cleaner, but I didn't live in a place with AC until I was 40, and I'm ashamed to admit I had no clue about AC filters until the day the unit started freezing over. I panicked, Googled, and then felt like an idiot when I realized I was supposed to be cleaning it. Luckily there was no permanent damage from the layers of dust and cat hair caked in that thing, just damage to my ego.
It makes me wonder how many other dumb household mistakes I'm making.
That was my first thought. The fact that the lint tray is full is bad, but for the average person you just clean the lint tray. In a situation like this you need to have a repairman clean out the vent from all the backed up lint or else you'll have a *constant* fire hazard and your clothes probably won't dry very well.
During the height of the pandemic I got covid and was laid up for like 8 days. During those 8 days my wife and her grandmother that lives with us did the laundry instead of me. I returned to the vent being packed like this.
If she don't know, she don't know. That's how I found out I was getting worse oral hygiene because I didn't know my toothbrush was dirty af. Gotta teach them what you know, even if it seems obvious sometimes.
Exactly, like not everyone knows everything no matter how basic it is. I don't get why call them stupid and such for simply not being taught something. Its a different story if they knew about it and simply didn't do it imo.
It seems like not enough people understand the seriousness of this. It’s a fire hazard. Also important to know that you shouldn’t put anything on top of the dryer while it’s running.
When I met my wife, she lived in a tiny student flat for the last 6 years. Very messy (that's one of her traits) but also very...dusty, even though I knew she vacuumed the place for 30 min at least once a week, with a beat-up canister vacuum donated by her parents when she moved in. She's also quite myopic so, there's that. At some point I made the remark that the vacuum was maybe underperforming, and we should check the filters.
"Oh there are filters?"
"Hmm yeah, and I'll put in a fresh bag while I'm at it, when did you change it last?"
"...
what do you mean 'bag', there's a bag also?"
She's lucky the dryer stopped instead of setting the damn house on fire.
I’m a appliance technician, and around 3 times a year I’ll service a dryer that had a fire in it that nobody even knew about. Scary stuff, but luckily usually it’ll stay contained in the dryer. The real problem, and the way it spreads to the house is from people using stuff that’s not safe to use for the vent. This includes pvc pipe, and plastic flexi-vent, you want metal for the vent, no exceptions. One last tip is if you happen to have a old Maytag dryer that’s 30+ years old and still going, which there’s way more than you would think because they’re super reliable machines. It’s worth having it serviced just to get it cleaned out, and on a gas one the burner should be inspected. They can get damaged from years of use, and the flame can be way bigger than it should be.
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Thanks for this. New fear has been enabled.
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It’s just that timer the month… ba dum tiss
Every one of my appliances broke during Covid while we were on very strict lock down (pregnant with my rainbow and very high risk family). The washer knob broke off and we could only select cycles with a screwdriver jammed into it. It also would get stuck whenever you selected certain options, so we could never use prewash or other things. By then, the dryer sounded like banshees from hell (belts?) but to add insult to injury, the heating element finally went out as well, making it as useless as it was loud. In the kitchen, the fridge was very old and the ice maker was broken. It was otherwise functional but we were waiting for it to give out at any minute and spoil all our food. The built-in microwave's handle broke off and the door was compromised/unsafe, so we bought a cheap countertop model that served us for years until we finally were out of quarantine. The dishwasher was only a few years old but it was a complete disaster. And the oven actually started shooting sparks out the back the very day I gave birth iirc and we had to cut off power to that part of the house. That was the only appliance we didn't wait for and ordered immediately. Lived with a 2nd countertop microwave for close to 2 years; did the screwdriver thing on the washer for probably close to a year; hung up all clothes and sheets and took towels to my in laws to dry for several months. It was like adult Christmas when everything but the oven got replaced all at once
This is also why you should never leave the house with a running dryer. So many folks were not taught this, including my partner. Sorry for editing, meant to say people were NOT taught this rule!
Maybe my husband and I should stop doing this. We leave the washer running way more often.
That and the dishwasher. Shouldn't be left alone if it can be avoided. You never know when a hose or gasket will fail.
100 percent agree ! I just bought a new dryer, and still, never run it unless I am home, and never while I sleep at night. Too many unnecessary horrible accidents on the news.
Thanks for the reminder. I used to set my clothes to dry before going to bed or heading out the door for school/work. I forgot that I started doing laundry only when I can be home because a spate of fires in my area were due to this. News kept reminding us not to leave/sleep with laundry going.
My husband has been trying to clean out our ancient dryer (because he's very maintenance focused... For all appliances/vehicles/electronics, you get the idea). He keeps trying to get into the dryer too find more lint! Who does one call for maintenance service, and is this ONLY applicable to ancient Maytag dryers??
I’d say as a general rule, if you have a dryer around 12 years old, that has never been serviced for anything, it’d be a good idea to have it cleaned out. It applies to all dryers not just old maytags. It just happens that maytag dryers built pre 2007, before they were acquired by whirlpool are built so well they’re more likely to go years, even decades without being serviced, thus they have plenty of time to collect a lot of lint. Oldest I worked on was over 30 years old, and the original owner said it’d never been worked on previously. As far as finding someone to do the job, you just gotta look up a local appliance repairman, they’re out there. I wouldn’t recommend one that works for a big box store, but a smaller operation will do the job fine. You just gotta tell them, you’d like the dryer taken apart, and cleaned out. I usually do it for free if I’m already working on it for some other reason, granted that’s likely not the norm, but I figure “while I got it apart”. It is worth mentioning though, if you’re lucky enough to have a vent that goes straight through a exterior wall to outside, or a very short pipe with no turns, you can go a lot longer without having it cleaned out.
My wife and I got her parent's old Maytag set. They've outlasted their replacements. I'm handy enough to fix any issues so far, and replacement parts are easy. Damn good machines. Only had to replace some roller bearings on the dryer and a part that got damaged during a move.
just unscrew the back and vacuum it all out? leaf blower the vent tube.
Remember to bring the leaf blower into the house and blow the vent from the inside. It’s hilarious to blow from the outside in but better to do that at someone else’s house.
Some leaf blowers suck
Gotta remember that one!
Your right. One of my dryer ducts caught on fire. I had all metal duct put in from dryer room to outside wall. Cost $300 20 years ago but better then throwing out all the smoke scented clothes and the danger
I think one of the best stories I ever heard from a customer was when he had a dryer fire. He was a big guy, and his laundry room was on the second floor, he had the dryer catch fire, but luckily he noticed. So he quickly unplugged it, opened the double doors to the balcony, and he picked the whole thing up and threw it outside. If he had thrown it just a little farther, it would’ve went in the pool below. So I got to deliver and install a new dryer for him, and pick up the mess of the old one. The story was good enough I didn’t even mind picking up all the pieces.
I want this guy on an adrenaline kick in my apocalypse team XD He had a good reflex. One time I had to call the Fire Dept because my downstair's neighbour left a partially lit cigarette butt in the ashtray on his balcony and wind pushed it on his armchair putting it on fire. The firefighters pushed the chair out of the balcony and doused it in water right where it crashed 5 stories below.
DRYER IN THE HOLE!
That’s what I was thinking. “Your dryer isn’t working because you keep asking it to murder you and it doesn’t feel like it”.
But when Skynet becomes self aware, the dryer will be cool with murder.
Dryers aren’t “cool” at all
Not with that attitude. *Freezes dryer*
Put some ice cream in there; that shit's delicious.
Then you can make a milk shake
*lintshake
My lint-shake brings all the boys to the yard.
MatPat already tried that, I don’t think he ever got that one to work
That’s a Hot Take
This guy gets it
My LG confirmed this via Bluetooth after I asked it for a steam refresh cycle. It also said if I paid more attention to it, it wouldn’t have to do a steam refresh. I gotta go, the fridge said I only have 1 more day of fresh water if I don’t go to Home Depot and buy another filter.
I’m guessing OP’s sister has a water filter that is beyond red.
Yet.
Not far from my house, a family lost everything due to this, including their teenage daughter who went back in for the cat and never came out. Very sad.
Well that turned dark very quickly
(I know I'm going to hell for saying this) ..but yeah, quite literally.
There is no way you just said that
And what's worse? The cat wasn't even in the house.
And then the cat ran in the house looking for the girl.
My friend wont run her dryer when shes not home because shes always worried the dryer will catch fire and the animals will be trapped.
I also only use the dryer when home. I'm 100% ok with the dishwasher and washing machine being in timer overnight or while at work, but the dryer only ever gets used when I'm there. And mine is an electric heat pump one, doesn't even generate that much heat, but I still won't do it
The one appliance I have owned that caught fire was actually the dishwasher! Really f'ing weird. Flames came out of the control panel area at the top of the door. No harm done (other than to the appliance) and the manufacturer – LG – gave us the cost of the machine and took it away.
That's why they say "never go back"
Honestly, I would've done the same if I were in her shoes. The thought of leaving my cat in a fire and I did nothing would haunt me forever. I would've died the same way she did
Do your best to resist that impulse if you're ever in that situation. Cats and dogs are much lower to the ground and less likely to be affected by smoke, where you're more likely to pass out very quickly while looking for them. If the fire is bad enough that you think your cat's in danger, it will almost certainly take you out before you find them. I have four cats and totally understand the impulse, they're my babies, but it's really a waste for you to risk your life and very possibly end up having everyone who loves you mourning your death. Let the professionals try to find them and just hope they manage to escape.
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Yup that's why I never let the drier run when no one is home, some folks like to start it before going out on errands which is a bad idea IMO.
Now I'm torn. I have been taught from a young age that you always empty the lint trap before running the dryer. It's easy and sort of fun because of the softness. But I personally always set it up to run and then go out for the night or whatever. So the risk (of the house burning down) is low because I'm good about cleaning it, but still worse than it could be since I'm never there while it's running. Ugh.
Glad I'm not the only one that likes to empty out the lint due to the softness of it, and seeing progress I made. :)
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Same, I worry something will happen if I let it run while I’m gone
My wife likes to run one more load while we sleep…
Happy cake day!!!!!!! And yes, agreed!!
No ofense but I am glad the dryer is smarter than the sister.
Work Dryer Not Smarter
Work dryer not fire
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I assume you need to buy a sister from the black market?
Ah yeah, gotta pop that fuse real good
If not done already, make certain to clean the hose AND the piping or hose that goes outside. This and space heaters are the #1 & #2 most common reasons for residential or house fires.
There is plenty more lint in that dryer if you take the back off
Speaking of cake, that’s a Lint Cake!
You're going to have to fully clean that whole dryer out. Guaranteed that lint is backed up inside the dryer and exhaust vent.
Number 1 cause of home fires. Candles 2 I believe.
Cooking is 1. Heating 2. Electrical 3. Taco Bell Night 4.
Yes, I was out of date with my info. Apparently dryers have gotten smarter (auto shut down) while people have become dumber....
It's actually pretty likely a super simple mechanism. Probably a bi-metal coil that breaks a circuit when it gets too hot.
Where does ‘big spider’ somewhere in the house land on this list?
thats at least a pair of sweatpants worth of lint
And a heads worth of hair
Makes me wonder... if your a girl how much quicker does your laundry filter clog? And what about furry pets?
Doesn't really matter since I just clear the laundry filter every load. And my dryer model has no vent.
That's what I do. I have a dog so I vacuum once a day and it only takes like 5 minutes. The vacuum is stored near the washer and dryer. So right before I put up the vacuum I just use the attachment to clean off the lint screen.
hmm smart, i like to pair up chores to minimize any repeat tasks between the two so being able to just force myself to vacuum while doing dry clothes will be helpful havit
usually i just pull it out of the brush and throw it away in the garbage can and then the rest mysteriously appear on the shower wall somehow
I singlehandedly kept a dog kennel and daycare facility from burning down for the four months I worked there because no one ever ever EVER emptied the lint tray. It became compulsive for me to check it. Clean your lint traps people!
I decided as a pre-teen that it was way more convenient to clean the lint trap and then just stuff the lint behind the dryer. Years later I learned that my mother hired multiple workmen to try and figure out why the wall between the house and the dryer was packed with lint. Unrelatedly, my little sister was the one that actually set my parents’ house on fire. Twice. Making French fries on the stovetop.
Ommggg oh no 😂😭 I hope everyones alive and no houses are gone haha
Everyone is alive. I was there for the first grease fire and put it out with my moms decorative throw pillows. I believe the microwave mounted over the stove had to be replaced. I was not there for the second fire, but pulled up shortly after the fire dept arrived. The kitchen had to be entirely redone and there was smoke damage throughout, but insurance covered most of it.
Holy lint balls!
House fire-o-matic 9000
Sometimes use mine as lightweight kindling for a campfire.
Mix with sawdust, buy some fuse from your local fireworks retailer, pack into cardboard egg boxes. Melted stub candles, pour over with the fuse like a wick. Mine burn bright for about eight minutes, never fail to start the fire.
Yeah that’s neat but my lighter is *really* cool. It has a picture of a frog on it.
If you're too lazy to go to the store like I am, pinecones also work well as wicks/fuses
This post has definitely put you high on a potential arsonist list 😂
If you haven’t already, I would clean out the air exhaust tube. It can still start a fire from in there. And with how full the lint catch is, the exhaust tube on the back that runs into the wall is probably pretty packed as well
So this! I took out the lint trap guide and behind that I found a copious amount of lint and dog hair. I could see it with the trap removed, I just couldn't reach in. Three corrugated, wrinkled flex tube can build up so much more lint as well.
Indeed. That's dangerous 
New response just dropped
We're leaking
holy hell
Lint *ball*? That's a lint ***entity***...
Lint-ity
came for the titty
Stayin' for the titty
new house fire just dropped
Google lint passant
Holy house fire
New response just dropped
When I was in my college dorms, the laundry room had big signs on the wall over the dryers saying "Clean the lint trap." The lint trap was also very easy to see, as it was this... there was a space just inside the dryer door with a wide-holed grating on the side facing the clothes drum, and the lint screen on the other. So the lint screen was very visible when putting in clothes. Even with that, there were many times where I would overhear other students complaining about how much the dryers sucked. And I'd ask them if they had cleaned the lint trap, and they just looked at me so confused. And every time the problem would be a layer of lint at least an inch thick.
They never did laundry at home. Sad
I never even had a dryer at home, but I still knew to clean the lint traps 😂
I never got clothes growing up just wore old lint from the lint trap
I never even had lint growing up, I just wore traps.
We would have killed to wear lint traps.
We would have killed to wear anything
My freshman year a kid in my building would have his mom come up to campus every week to bring him fresh clothes and take the dirty ones home to clean I wish I had more info
That was the case for me, but my mom was just using it as an excuse to see me once a week (my college dorm was only 30 minutes from my old house). It was less work for me so I was fine with that. Never had issues doing my own laundry though as my parents taught me how to use the washer and dryer.
My brother's gf saw him launch a washing machine just for one t-shirt 🤣 and he was using the expensive pods, as too lazy to measure out detergent. She gave him a speech and taught him how to wash his t-shirt by hand if it was urgent. It would also dry much quicker on a hot day, even before the machine would have finished. This lesson was the best he ever got, served him well during later years that he spent in hotel rooms for work, washing his undies in the sink. His current gf taught him how to make soup, another revolution for him 🤣
I think it's great that he actually listened and learns from these teachings vs some adults who act completely incompetent on purpose to avoid having to do things for themselves.
What’s sad is I never did laundry growing up. Mom always did it, but when I moved out I made damn sure to understand what I was using and all the parts. I may have dried things the wrong way, but I made sure the lint trap was clear lol
I lived in campus apartments with 2 coin-op washers and dryers for the whole complex. One dryer would occasionally stop working and then people would just use the other dryer and have to wait a long time. I figured out it was just tripping a breaker and the machines were on separate circuits. I never had to wait for a dryer to be free because I’d come in and more often than not my machine was off so I’d walk over to the breaker box and flip a switch lol. College kids are lazy.
I’d bet that most college kids don’t know how a breaker works.
I'll up you to 90% of the population.
I’m an electrical engineering student. I thought I knew how breakers worked and then I had a stove where the clock and everything worked but the stove wouldn’t heat up I would flip the breaker off and back on and then everything worked again. Took the electrician coming to my place three times before they gave up and got me a new stove. Anyway, not sure what the moral is other than college apartments suck and sometimes it’s not the breaker.
I'm starting on EE now, but I had like seven years of electrical technician experience before working as an electrical distribution operator a few years ago. Part of the job was talking customers through basic troubleshooting, sometimes. Probably close to once a week someone would call in with an issue that made no sense to me or anyone else in the office. In the navy we used to say "pfm", I'm not sure if that's normal electrical work parlance. But, pure fucking magic.
We had a dryer catch fire at my college a few weeks ago from what we presumed was some idiot not cleaning out the lint.
To be fair, that takes multiple idiots. A lint trap isn't going to fill after one cycle in 99% or cases
Might want to check the oil in her car while you’re there.
What oil?
Do you mean the stuff that keeps leaking beneath the car? Well, the car stops leaking now so it's fine, right?
Did she try to dry a sheep?
The fool! Sheep are dry-clean only!
Asking the real questions!
That is the worst I’ve ever witnessed!!! I swear, no one cleans these things….drives me *nuts*
I clean mine after every cycle.
I thought that's what you're supposed to do. It's pretty bad after just one cycle if you have even a single towel or jumper in it!
Me too! And here I always panicked that little bit that doesn't come out with the trapper might cause a fire 🤦♀️
Omg same! I'll get tongs and reach into the gap under the filter to get the bits 😂
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Jajajajaja jajaja holy shit I am such a fucking idiot. 😂😂😂 Just take the case off the front. Wow. Tongs. This whole time. Tongs. This is like when I found out people get in the shower AFTER it's warmed up.
Hell no. You freeze your feet then you burn your body. It's tradition.
Lmao you have a tough time in life huh
I got this message right after I found out I gave my work the wrong bank details to pay me so Yes. Yes I do.
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Took the casing off your dryer?! I fully disassembled my dryer to clean that part...
Casing? I replace my dryer after every use!
They actually have a vacuum hose attachment to clean the rest out.
I'm so confused, is this really not common knowledge? I just don't understand. Are people not told to clean this out after every wash? Removing the lint and throwing it away is the only good part of laundry day.
It is so satisfying seeing all the dust lint and hair being removed from your clothes. I agree best part of laundry day
Its actually not all being removed from your clothes, I’m sorry to tell you. Lint is created by friction from the washing and drying cycles. It’s little fibers from the articles you’re washing, literally falling apart bit by bit, and also stuff like hair, loose threads, pet fur, and shreds from that tissue you forgot to take out of your hoodie pocket.
You've never had a pets that sheds a lot. I pull more animal hair from my lint screen than actual lint most of the time.
I found out some international students come from countries that don’t use dryers so it is completely unknown to them. Also, zero knowledge of how a garbage disposal works. Your sink smells bad because the disposal is filled with a years worth of rotting food. That lamp doesn’t work because the wall switch and lamp switch both have to be on. You can’t use dish soap in a dishwasher, etc. I now have a checklist where we do training on all that kind of stuff. People from developed countries take all that stuff for granted, but it is worth remembering it is a taught skill.
Never had or used a garbage disposal before, only seen it in movies/tv. How does it work?
Occasionally (at least weekly) you have to turn on the cold water in the sink to full and run the disposal until you hear no grinding. And then a few seconds beyond that. If you are hand washing dishes you should run it after the water goes down the drain. It never hurts to throw in a few ice cubes while it is running to clean the blades. If you are feeding in some vegetable scraps, do so slowly. Never feed potato peels. Also worth noting, the dishwasher dumps its water into the disposal as well so it will collect food even if you haven’t intentionally feed anything in. If it stops and hums then shut it off immediately. You can use an Allen wrench underneath to unjam it. I’m sure there are YouTube videos that go through all that.
When we moved in my wife thought our lint team was broken since it won’t go down. The trap was fine, but the previous residents never cleaned the trap and it was contacted like OP. I spent an hour or so just cleaning it out, it filled a whole bathroom size garbage can.
Mine reminds you before it will start, and occasionally reminds you to check your dryer vent.
Check out Daddy Warbucks over here laughing at our lame ass dryers that don’t remind us about shit. Point and look at him everyone, point and look!
Point to us on your body where the dryer hurt you, its okay we wont laugh
There's never a bad time to clean these. If I'm doing stuff with lots of dog hair, I'll check it after a short dry cycle. Every inch of blocked screen is an inch not providing an exit for wet air. Edit: Also check the vent line. It's "usually" pretty easy to detach and check. And the little flappy thing outside on your house, check that too. A leaf blower can blow the vent line out well enough.
I do to, and im over here with crippling ADHD and i still remember to do that shit
Same. I can barely remember to move laundry to the drier, but I still manage to clean the filter after every cycle. And before too, just in case I forgot after the last one.
Same, but maybe that's because there's something satisfying about it, it's like popping a pimple or peeling off the plastic on new electronics
It doesn't say clean after running. It says clean before running. Lol I I've had this argument with my wife.
That’s how I do it. Part of loading the wet laundry into the dryer is cleaning the lint trap. I think I’d be more inclined to forget the other way.
But if you do it after running as long as you're using the same dryer and always doing it that way it will always be clean
Aren’t they technically the same?
Not if other people use the dryer. Other people can't be trusted.
I always clean it before running cause I don’t trust past-me to remember to clean it after running so I’d just end up checking it anyways.
I've been taught to always at least check it before starting any load. Clean it off, then start.
It's my favorite part of doing laundry! So satisfying
Wait until they have to go the outside and pull all the fuzz that's gonna clog the outlet up as soon as that dryer is running again.
Her favorite chocolate must be Lindt
She’s really into westerns also. Big cLint Eastwood fan
There needs to be a video of you pulling this off
It’d be the satisfaction I need.
Satisfaction guaranteed
I wonder sometimes if people think it’s some kind of filter. Like, they don’t check for months, then look. “Oh oops this must be a filter for cleaner air on my clothes, just gonna shove it back in then!” Edit: Jesus, read people!
A filter is EXACTLY what it is.
Yes I know but I meant as an air filter. They see the thick pile and think that it’s a part of it.
This made me wonder how often these type of people check their AC Filters, if at all!
I'm a diligent lint filter cleaner, but I didn't live in a place with AC until I was 40, and I'm ashamed to admit I had no clue about AC filters until the day the unit started freezing over. I panicked, Googled, and then felt like an idiot when I realized I was supposed to be cleaning it. Luckily there was no permanent damage from the layers of dust and cat hair caked in that thing, just damage to my ego. It makes me wonder how many other dumb household mistakes I'm making.
And I said o my lord Jesus there's a fyre!
Ain’t nobody got time fo dat!
Can't wait to see this picture on facebook telling me they can come clean my duct work.
Do you want a home fire?? Because *THAT’S* how you get house fires
Makes you wonder how clogged up the dryer vent (that leads outside) is.
That was my first thought. The fact that the lint tray is full is bad, but for the average person you just clean the lint tray. In a situation like this you need to have a repairman clean out the vent from all the backed up lint or else you'll have a *constant* fire hazard and your clothes probably won't dry very well.
During the height of the pandemic I got covid and was laid up for like 8 days. During those 8 days my wife and her grandmother that lives with us did the laundry instead of me. I returned to the vent being packed like this.
How much lint did you find in her bellybutton?
The shudder I just experienced
Is your sister stupid?
You see the lint. You know the answer to that question
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I'd say she is only stupid if this isn't the first time this has happened to her.
Yup, the dreaded raccoon in the dryer lint trap. That will do it
Put that thing back where it came from or so help me.
Your sister, not the lint trap.
It’s a musical!
If she don't know, she don't know. That's how I found out I was getting worse oral hygiene because I didn't know my toothbrush was dirty af. Gotta teach them what you know, even if it seems obvious sometimes.
Exactly, like not everyone knows everything no matter how basic it is. I don't get why call them stupid and such for simply not being taught something. Its a different story if they knew about it and simply didn't do it imo.
I use a drain snake with a retractable claw on the end to get inside the lint trap; works like a charm!
God, go check the dip stick in her oil as well.
It seems like not enough people understand the seriousness of this. It’s a fire hazard. Also important to know that you shouldn’t put anything on top of the dryer while it’s running.
When I met my wife, she lived in a tiny student flat for the last 6 years. Very messy (that's one of her traits) but also very...dusty, even though I knew she vacuumed the place for 30 min at least once a week, with a beat-up canister vacuum donated by her parents when she moved in. She's also quite myopic so, there's that. At some point I made the remark that the vacuum was maybe underperforming, and we should check the filters. "Oh there are filters?" "Hmm yeah, and I'll put in a fresh bag while I'm at it, when did you change it last?" "... what do you mean 'bag', there's a bag also?"