Dryer takes too long to dry
Nine times out of ten this is airflow, not a dying appliance. Here is the two-minute test that tells you which one you have, before you spend money with anybody.
The test
Put the dryer on air fluff, the no-heat setting, and start it. Walk outside to wherever your vent comes out and put your hand near it.
Strong, steady air pushing out. Your duct is clear. A cleaning will not help you and the problem is inside the machine, usually a heating element or a thermostat. Call an appliance repair tech, not us.
Weak air, or nothing at all. The duct is restricted. That is the entire thing we do, and it is $99.
If your vent goes out the roof and you cannot safely get to it, there is an indoor version. Pull the dryer out, disconnect the duct from the back of it, and run one load with the hose off. If it dries fine that way, the duct is your problem. Open a window, because you are venting lint and moisture into the room.
That test costs nothing and sorts out the two possibilities in about two minutes. Do it before you call anyone, us included.
Is your dryer throwing an error code?
Start here, because this is the most reliable signal there is and almost nobody tells you about it.
If your dryer is throwing a code, 95% of the time it is the vent.
Newer machines are genuinely good at detecting this. They monitor how long a cycle is taking and how hot the exhaust is running, and when the airflow is restricted enough that the numbers stop making sense, they throw a code or shut the cycle down. Different manufacturers name it differently, but it is the same underlying condition: the air is not getting out.
What people do with that code is call an appliance repair tech, pay a service fee, and get told the machine is fine and the vent is blocked. That happens constantly. If your dryer has started throwing codes, check the vent before you pay anyone to look at the appliance.
Older dryers do not have this. They just quietly run hot and take two cycles until something fails, which is why the neglect in the older parts of town goes unnoticed for so long.
If it is the duct, what is actually in there?
Packed lint, most of the time
The majority of what we find. It builds so gradually that people adjust without noticing. You start running a second cycle sometimes, then usually, then always, and at no point is there a day where it obviously broke.
How long that takes depends on where in Gilbert you are. A two-story in Power Ranch with a thirty-foot roof run can get there in three years. A single-story in old town with a short side-wall run might take fifteen, and often the answer is simply "since the house was built."
A crushed transition hose
The ribbed foil flex behind the dryer gets pinched flat when the machine is pushed back to close the laundry closet door. Extremely common in the newer builds where the closets are barely deeper than the appliance. It chokes airflow at the source, before the lint in the duct even matters. More on that here.
A nest in the roof cap
This one is sudden, not gradual. If your dryer was working fine last month and is useless now, and it is anywhere between February and May, look here first. Full page on it.
A duct that has separated
The joint comes apart inside a wall or in the attic, and now the dryer is venting hot, wet, lint-laden air into the structure of your house. You often smell it before you find it, and there is sometimes a damp patch or stain on drywall near the laundry. This one does real damage and is worth dealing with quickly.
The exterior vent flap stuck shut
The flapper rusts, warps in the sun, or lint jams it, and it stops opening. Easy to check from the ground on a side-wall vent: run the dryer and watch whether the flap lifts. If it does not, that is your whole problem, and it is a cheap fix.
The lint trap housing
Less common as a sole cause, but it stacks on top of everything else. The cavity your lint screen slides into fills with everything the screen misses and nothing empties it.
What a clogged vent is doing to the appliance
More than making laundry slow. Every dryer has a thermal fuse that cuts power on overheat, and a restricted vent trips it regularly. The heating element runs past its design conditions on every load. The machine works harder than it was built to, every time.
The result is that dryers die young. One that should last twelve to fifteen years goes at six or seven, and the owner concludes they bought a bad dryer. Very often they bought a fine dryer and never cleaned the vent.
Source: National Fire Protection Association, Home Fires Involving Clothes Dryers and Washing Machines.
We will tell you when it is not us
Worth saying plainly, because it is the whole reason the test is at the top of this page instead of buried at the bottom.
If you call us and it turns out your duct is clear, we are not going to clean it anyway and charge you $99. We will tell you it is the appliance and point you at somebody who fixes appliances. That costs us a job and it is still the right call, because the alternative is taking your money for work that changed nothing and having you tell your neighbors about it.
What we do about it
- Inspect the whole path. Hose, duct, elbows, termination. Problems hide at the ends more often than people expect.
- Brush the full run with a rotary brush, both ends where the run allows.
- Work it from inside as well, machine unplugged and pulled back, brushing down and vacuuming the lint up out of the wall.
- Reconnect, run it, and show you the pile. You will know immediately whether that was the problem.
Common questions
Why does my dryer take two cycles to dry?
Almost always restricted airflow in the vent. Your dryer produces hot, wet air and it has nowhere to go, so the moisture stays in the drum and your clothes come out damp. Less often it is a failed heating element or thermostat inside the machine. The two-minute airflow test on this page tells you which one you have before you spend anything.
How can I tell if it is the vent or the dryer?
Run the dryer on air fluff, the no-heat setting, and go feel the air at the exterior vent. Strong steady air means the duct is clear and the problem is the appliance. Weak air or none means the duct is blocked. If your vent goes out the roof and you cannot reach it, disconnect the duct behind the dryer and run one load with the hose off. If it dries fine that way, the duct is your problem. Open a window if you do that, because you are venting lint and moisture into the room.
Can a clogged dryer vent break my dryer?
Yes, and this is the part people underestimate. Every dryer has a thermal fuse that cuts power when the machine overheats, and a restricted vent makes it overheat repeatedly. The heating element runs well past its design conditions on every load. A machine that should last twelve to fifteen years dies at six or seven, and the owner concludes they bought a bad dryer.
My dryer shuts off partway through a cycle. Is that the vent?
Often, yes. That is usually the thermal fuse cutting power because the machine is overheating, and a blocked vent is the most common reason for it. It can also be a failed thermostat, so run the airflow test first. If the air at the vent is weak, start with the duct.
Is it worth cleaning the vent on a twenty-year-old dryer?
Usually more so, not less. An older machine has less margin, so a restricted vent hurts it faster and is more likely to finish it off. A $99 cleaning that buys two more years out of an old dryer is a good trade against eight hundred to fifteen hundred for a replacement.
What if the test says my duct is clear?
Then a cleaning will not help you and we will tell you that rather than take your money. You want an appliance repair tech, usually for a heating element or a thermostat. We do not do appliance repair and we do not know anyone who pays us to refer, so that advice is worth exactly what it costs you.
Calls answered 7am to 8pm · same-day service usually available
$99 flat. If it turns out to be your appliance, we will tell you that instead of cleaning something that did not need it.