dryer safety: Clothes dryers, lint, and fires - 08/06/12 08:13 PM
According to Underwriters Laboratories, clothes dryers are responsible for approximately 15,000 home fires each year.    It's not hard to believe.  Improperly installed and improperly maintained clothes dryer ducts are one of the most common issues that home inspectors find, but it's not that difficult to keep your clothes dryer safe.  Today I'll discuss dryer duct installations and maintenance.
Installation In Minnesota, the installation requirements for clothes dryer ducts can be found in Section 504 of the Minnesota Mechanical Code.   I won't go over all of the requirements, but I will mention a few of the items that most people have questions … (44 comments)

dryer safety: Dryer Safety - 02/12/09 10:34 PM
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that in 1998, there were 15,600 fires related to clothes dryers.  These fires caused 20 deaths and 370 injuries.  Dryer ducts are one of the items that I most commonly find problems with when I inspect homes, but keeping your dryer safe is usually an easy thing to do.  The two problems I find are improper installations and lack of maintenance.
 
Improper installations on dryer ducts are rampant.  The most obvious, and possibly most common defect, is plastic dryer ducts.   Plastic is not allowed for dryer ducts because lint can easily accumulate in the duct when … (1 comments)