A clothes dryer is a wonderful thing.  You put in wet clothes, apply lots of electricity, and out come dry clothes.  In my house, this is a necessity.  (I’m allergic to 97% of the things outside, so a clothes line is only to be used when Kelley is really mad at me.)  So, when the dryer doesn’t dry, what do you do?

About 6 months to a year ago, Kelley called some random person and they came out and cleaned out our dryer vent.  Immediately afterward, the magical drying process was restored.  Was the wife happy with this?  NO!  She demands that the vent remain unclogged at the dryer functional all times.  Is there no pleasing this woman?

I’m as frugal as the next person, (assuming that the next person is indeeed equal in frugality to me….if not, then forget that I mad that assertion) so I like to save a buck.  I don’t want to call our this random guy to clean my vent every six months.  Wouldn’t you know it, Lowe’s had the solution for me.  The LintEater hooks up to your drill and is supposedly used to clean out your dryer vent.  Apparently this is only true in houses other than my own.  Here’s the brief synopsis of what happened, although these events took the better part of a Sunday afternoon and Monday evening.

  1. Hooked up the little brush attachment, ran into the vent.  Got it hung up somewhere in the middle.
  2. Removed the brush, replaced the tip with the “clog removal tool”
  3. Ran the clog removal tool through the entire vent.
  4. Inspected the opening on the other end…yep.  There’s the tool….no clog removed, though.
  5. Attached the brush, and pulled the thing back through the vent.
  6. Noted that very little lint came out.
  7. Tried dryer, yep, it blows hot air.
  8. Hooked up the dryer to the vent, turned it on, checked the outlet….nothing.
  9. Rehooked the brush thingy on, pushed it back down through the vent.
  10. Checked the back end.  Hello, brush.  Still no lint removed.  Maybe this thing actually does “eat” the lint.
  11. Pulled back through for good measure….still nothing.

So, apparently the LintEater is designed to sneak around the lint and leave it undisturbed.  While interesting, it’s not very helpful.  So, I did what any other engineer would do in this situation….I “improved” the design.

  1. Used washers and bolts to attach a rag to the “system.”
  2. Pushed the thing down until it got clogged.
  3. Pulled it out and marveled at the amount of lint that was removed.  Are we missing a sweater?
  4. Came up with a brilliant idea…
  5. Ran the “clog removal tool all the way through the vent.
  6. Excitedly attached the rag to the dryer side.
  7. Went to the exhaust side, hooked up the drill, and pulled.  The theory is that it would be a lot easier to pull the rag through the vent than to push it.

A different kind of clogApparently my calculations did not take into account the fact that there would be a lot of lint in the vent.  When the rag got beyond reach from either end, the nifty “Dryer Vent Cleaning System” broke.  And not just “hey, that’s unfortunate” kind of break.  It was broken at the precise location where the rag was firmly planted into the middle of my dryer vent…and I couldn’t reach it.

I was so mad that I ripped the pieces I could get out of the vent and flung them as hard as I could.  Apparently, the “Dryer Vent Cleaning System” was not designed for prolonged flights and fell a few feet from where I was standing.  Fortunately, after I’d settled down and my wife assured me that I was still a man, I was able to use some other tools to get the rag out.  More importantly, though, I still had the original packaging…and I knew where Lowe’s was.

Morale(s) of the story:

  • If you need to avoid lint, I recommend the LintEater.  It knows exactly how to sneak around the lint and come out clean as a whistle on the other side.
  • The customer service person that was working at our Lowe’s last night is awesome.  Of course, I think she probably knew that I’ve probably spent enough money there to fund her college and her retirement.  But, she accepted our return and fully refunded our money.
  • It’s difficult to take out your frustration on little flexible rods.
  • Our house contains magical lint-attracting pipes.
  • I’m installing a new dryer vent this weekend.