Where oh where could the dryer vent be?
Sometimes you know a change has been made, but you don't know where.
This dryer vent has blown directly onto the AC compressor since the house was built. That would be 1979.
A dryer vent should not be within 12' or so of a compressor. Too close, as in this case here, and the compressor will draw in air while the dryer is venting its lint-laden exhaust. That can load up the fins with lint, clogging them, and robbing the compressor and AC system of efficiency. I have seen compressors look like they had grown a gray beard!
Over time, enough clogging can kill the compressor.
This compressor is less than two years old.
I have to wonder how many compressors have had to be installed over the years as this dryer vented right onto them!
But wait! This dryer vent is intentionally plugged with a K-Mart bag!
The dryer no longer vents here.
Not seeing another vent anywhere on the outside of the house, or the roof, I was interested in where it was venting!
When these things happen, they become fun detective scenes.
I like to sing the title of this post to myself!
Sooner or later the vent will show up.
Usually the evidence is, um, visible!
Pulling down the folding ladder to the space over the garage, and looking over, I found it!
Wonderful!
Going further, and I had not been upstairs yet, that white vent cover could be completely removed from the wall there.
Looking into the hole, I could see what looked like the back side of a dryer!
Mentioning that to my clients, they said, "Oh, yeah, the sellers made a laundry room upstairs."
Hmmm. This should be interesting.
And it was! The linen closet had been turned into a "laundry room." A wall had been knocked out and the "laundry room" was a part of the master bathroom! And it was cute!
Oh, there was lint everywhere. And County permits were nailed all over the wall!
I may be exaggerating a bit on the County permits. There was nothing smart or safe about this installation. Or the kitchen remodeling. Or the newly finished basement. Or the new window in the dining room. Or the front stoop.
My recommendation: when you see one wrong thing, it usually leads to another, sometimes connected to the first! Even if the dryer vent had not been plugged, it still would have been a problem. And the "fix" for it was no fix at all! And don't forget to be a preposition!
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