Venting issues

[vintagekenmore]

Well guys, after ten years in an apartment I am finally moving into a house. Ive got an awkward setup for the dryer exhaust vent in the garage. Basically the vent itself goes up into the ceiling and then into the attic and across to where the exhaust hood pokes out above the side door just below the peak in the roof. How hard is this going to be to clean out cause it has one hell of an accumulation of lint where the exhaust tubing would meet the metal vent ductwork in the garage. Ive never seen a house with this setup before....every one I have ever lived in has the venting run across the wall and out through the brickwork. This is off topic Im sure but I need to know about cleaning and how well the dryer will perform with this type of setup!!

 

[DADoES]

 
Yeah, probably your question should be in the Super section.

But anyway, that is far from a good exhaust situation.  Is there an obvious reason why it was done that way?  It can't be revised for a direct path through an outside wall?

Friend in Sugar Land has her laundry on the 2nd floor.  Duct passes up the wall, through an attic span and out.  Home inspection at her purchase missed that the ductwork had separated and it was exhausting into the attic.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Congratulations on the house!

If you can get into the attic to clean the run, that would be a plus. How many feet of run are you talking about? Seems like a good hot attic in Houston would cut down on lint-trapping condensation in a long vent run. How many turns? If possible, you should try to replace any plastic flexible hose with rigid duct because in many places the plastic stuff does not meet fire code.

You can probably expect to find this relocated into the Super forum so don't panic if you don't see it here next time you look.

 

[danemodsandy]

Re-Do It!

From your description, I take it your laundry is on a main floor or second floor, and the ductwork runs up through the ceiling, over to a sidewall and then out.

This is Not. Good. Even in lovely warm Houston, it's going to promote condensation, because of Houston's lovely humidity. It's also going to be a booger to keep cleaned out, as you correctly note.

What I would strongly urge you to do is to bite the bullet and do things right. The vent should go through the wall of the room the dryer's in, if you have to drill through masonry to do it. ALL components of the ductwork should be aluminum, no plastic anywhere. And all seams - both joints between duct sections and seams of the duct sections themselves - should be sealed with metal tape, not the stuff commonly called "duct" tape.

You want the shortest run possible, with the fewest turns possible, and you don't want the run passing through an attic space if you can possibly avoid it.

This will be a bit of a project, true. But it will pay huge dividends in safety, and in convenience at cleaning-out time. It will also make it much easier to keep an eye on all sections of your duct, to look for evidence of seam separation. If a seam in that attic run separates, and if you don't catch it right away, it's a perfect breeding ground for both mold and nesting mice - they looooooooove lint for nest-building.

 

[arbilab]

We all knew, right?

The one thing for which 'duct tape' is useless is DUCTS.

It was originally designated "duck tape" because in temporary applications it is water resistant.

At best the described situation is inefficient for the dryer. At worst it's a fire hazard. Approach accordingly.

 

[danemodsandy]

P.S.:

I forgot to mention something important in my post above:

When I said all the duct components needed to be aluminum, I meant that all of them should be HARD ducting components - hard, inflexible sections of ducting, hard elbows, etc. There is such a thing as corrugated flexible aluminum ducting, and while it's marginally better than flexible plastic duct because it's more fire-resistant, ANY corrugated flexible duct traps much more lint inside and clogs faster than hard ducting does.

It's a bit of trouble to cut and join sections of hard duct, but the safety factor and ease of cleaning make it very, very worthwhile.

 

[vintagekenmore]

the house itself is in an older subdivision and was built in 1976....basically the main ductwork goes straight up through the ceiling, makes a right hand turn and runs to the right to the outside of the house at what I can guesstimate is a good four to five feet straight across...all of the houses are all electric in my block and the majority of them have this setup from what I have seen of those that have the garage doors open. I will have to get up in the attic and see if it is the all metal ducting that makes the run from the ceiling and then out of the house and hopefully it has not separtated. I suspect this is going to be a major project if it has not been done properly