Laundry rooms are generally against an outside wall in most people’s homes. Behind the dryer, it’s a short pipe, on the other side of the wall is the exhaust flap. It will be a straight and level shot. The hot air is outside and there are 3 ft of pipe. However, if you are residing in one of L.A.’s multi-story townhome, condo, or new homes, your laundry room is most likely in the center of the home. It has no surrounding walls looking outwards. Where will the exhaust air go then? It’s going up in a straight line. Even out of the ceiling, into the attic and out through a special cap on your roof. It’s an architectural solution, too. It saves space. But mechanically? Vertical dryer vent pipe is an absolute pain in the back for an appliance. Every time you wash your clothes, it makes your dryer work against gravity, condensation and structural blockages. Your roof-vented dryer is always having trouble drying your clothes, and there may be water behind your dryer, but there is a solution!
The Gravity Problem: When each row is a row and so on.
The dryer’s motor inside generates the air to be pushed horizontally. It is not meant to fill in to an elevator like you would a boastful elevator. When clothes are hanging on the washing machine, it’s removing pound after pound of water vapor and microfibers from your clothing. If the blower motor is vertical, it must have the power to propel that wet mass to the sky at its feet, 15 to 25 feet straight up. The motor’s lifting ability decreases as with even a slight weak in the airflow (perhaps internal lint screen is a little dirty or transition hose to the back of machine is slightly kinked). It is almost halfway up the vertical pipe, stalls out and returns back down. This happens over a number of months and results in a huge plug in the bottom of the vertical pipe which essentially chokes the appliance.
The Cold Attic Effect: Why Your Dryer is Dripping Water
You can hear the sound of water dripping as it comes out of your dryer. You can hear the dripping of water from the dryer. Someone has sure noticed a puddle of water behind their dryer, or maybe perhaps your drum has an interior that is damp prior to you placing clothing in it, you’re encountering vertical pipe condensation. Your uninsulated attic becomes extremely cold during the winter season or on cool coastal nights for Los Angeles. The dryer starts up and emanates hot air from 150 degrees F that goes right through that cold metal pipe. Air that contains water vapor that touches the cold metal quickly turns into a liquid. It is converted to liquid when it is cold enough. This water combines with the loose airborne lint within the ducts, forming an extremely thick, cement-like substance which clings to the walls of the duct. Water gradually starts to collect then physically drain back down the vertical pipe, through the rear of your dryer and puddle on your floor. Unless you mop it up or clean the back of your machine, it will take a full beating on your control board and rust out the back of your machine.
The Hidden Culprit: A Dead Dryer Booster Fan
Since dryers are not designed to blow air 25 feet straight up, building codes may specify the need to install a dryer booster fan. This is a secondary unit which is a motorized fan housed either in the walls, or up in the attic dryer duct. Detects when your dryer is running and activates to draw the air the rest of the way to the roof. The problem? This second fan is not known by most homeowners. As a matter of fact, booster fans even end up with lint! The fan blades accumulating debris causes the motor to burn out. When this fan comes to a stop, it’s actually a physical obstruction within the pipe. Your dryer pushes air up, but hits the blocked fan and then all the air goes back into your laundry area. If your clothes all of a sudden are taking three cycles of washing to dry, the dead attic booster fan is almost always the culprit.
The Roof Cap: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
If the air reaches the tip of the plane, it must escape nonetheless. Heat and lint being trapped in a roof cap due to it being clogged. Note: Dryer Vent Cleaner The screens on roof caps are great for keeping rain and rodents out, but are known to trap lint. Being 30 feet high above ground, nobody ever inspects them. The lint accumulates under the cap until a solid lint ceiling is created as seen in the photo above. The moment that the roof top with its lint gets clogged, lint seals the way out, and you have a kind of dryer with a pre-set cork in the lint pipe.
Why You Can’t Cut a Vertical Line with Hand Tools
In case you have a vertical arrangement, never attempt to clean by following the directions a brush kit from Amazon for drilling. When you push a brush up in a vertical pipe, simply all of that heavy compacted, stuff falls straight down into your machine. Also, the exit screen can’t be safely accessed on the roof cap. Dryer Vent Now is the one place with a vertical and roof-vented vertical cleaning specialism focusing on systems from all of Los Angeles. Hands free high pressure pneumatic tools which are used to remove debris with pressure outwards and not dropping into your laundry area. We test and clean all hidden booster fans, and up on the roof to make sure the terminal cap is properly flowing. A worn-out vertical pipe will cause your clothes dryer to take a long time to properly dry your clothes or may cause water to collect behind the machine. Give us a call at Dryer Vent Now – +1 (310) 304-5826 and we will get your home back on its feet.