I have an old clothes dryer. That machine is going 10 years now and seems to be running great! We all hate paying a ton of money to buy new appliances and if we take care of the ones we have it saves a lot of money. One way to extend the life of your dryer is to take out that Lint-Catcher and clean it with some warm soap n water.
Did you realized that you get build up on your lint catcher? It might seem like air is flowing perfectly through that mesh/vent but what you don’t see is a clear film. Take out your link-catcher and just see if it the water doesn’t go through like this picture of my dryer today.
You see? The water is collecting and not going through very well. It needs to be cleaned so the air will also flow correctly through. Take some warm water, dish soap and a toothbrush. Scrub it and rinse until the water flows through easily like this picture below. I like to clean this lint-catcher once every 2-3 months.
So remember, sometimes little upkeeping tasks will extend the life of the appliances that you use often. And this equals big savings!
The salesman for the set I just got said that dryer sheets are the worst to use liquid.. And if I do use them to run the filter in the dishwasher.. Also, when you are cleaning take the vac and get every spot you can get the thing to fit. sometimes when my older dryer wasnt working well it was because I needed to vac. This also helps with fire!!
Good tip girl!
WOW, I had NO idea! Thanks for this great tip, I’m going home tonight and washing mine too!
I clean mine monthly AND… twice a year I pull the dryer out to mop. This is a good time to use a screwdriver to take off the hose. Remove it from the dryer and the vent going outside. You can then clean the hose out with a vacuum as well as the vent itself. Reinstall when complete. By doing this, you will certainly reduce the chance of a dryer/lint fire.
My dryer repairman said if you use fabric softner sheets to wash that vent frequently.
Washed mine today after reading your post. I knew about this but forgot to do it for a while. Thanks for the reminder!
Wow, I never knew that! I always remove the lint before starting a new load, but I don’t think I’ve ever used soap & water on the lint trap (maybe once?) and we’ve had our dryer for 6 years!!
Great tip! We have an older dryer and it takes FOREVER to dry clothes. I bet this is part of the problem. Thanks for (hopefully) saving me some time!
Nice! I did this last night… I’m a single woman and homeowner. I need to make sure I am doing everything I can to make my investments LAST 🙂
Great tip. I’ve been doing laudry for nearly fifty years and this is the first time I heard of this. Washed mine first thing this morning when starting my wash, plan to make it part of my routine.
I have that exact same dryer! Right before we were married we got both the waser and dryer for free from a friend’s brother. They said the washer didn’t work, but my handy hubby discovered a baby sox stuck in the drain! That was two years ago and they are still both going strong. Thanks for the tip!
New reader here. I have to say that I didn’t believe this article’s claim when I first read it. But when I tried to blow at my hand through my lint collector screen, I could barely feel anything! After cleaning the apparently invisible layer off I can now feel my breath through the screen.
So thanks for the tip, now I have one for you as well. In the winter time, I remove the vent duct from the wall and instead blow the hot humid exhaust air into a mesh bag directly into my house. The bag collects any fine particles and my whole house feels cozy on laundry day! (This helps reduce my monthly heating bill!)
We also take the vent and hang it up outside our laundry room to help put moisture into the house. We live in Wyoming (VERY dry!), and have wood heat – so it really helps! We just put a knee high panty hose over the tip. Works great!
This is going on my to-do list this weekend 🙂