Having laundry in your house is one of the great small luxuries of the modern age. Being able to just toss soiled clothing and linens into two magic cubes and get clean, dry stuff back a short time later is amazing and easy to take for granted. It’s so magical that most of us take our hard-working laundry machines for granted—as long as they’re doing the job, we don’t think about them too much.
But your washer and dryer require maintenance, especially if you notice anything odd. Dryers might seem pretty innocuous—all they do is dry your clothes using heat and air circulation. You might think that as long as you clean your dryer vent now and then to stay on top of the lint buildup, you’re good. But dryers are supposed to be self-contained systems that extract moisture from your clothes and vent it outside the house. If you notice that your house fills with the smell of dryer sheets every time you dry a load of wash, you should immediately inspect your vent hose or duct—because a dryer with an air leak can cause you a lot of problems.
Signs of an air leak
The signs of an air leak are simultaneously subtle and very obvious once you notice them:
Smell. As mentioned, if you can tell someone is drying their clothes by the smell in the air, you’ve likely got an air leak.
Lint and dust. If the area around your dryer is coated in a thick pelt of lint, it’s probably leaking out with the air from your vent duct or hose.
Air movement. If the air leak is particularly bad, you might even feel a warm breeze when you get near the dryer.
If you detect an air leak, you might be tempted to assume it’s no big deal. The dryer is still working, your clothes are still drying, so what’s the problem?
Potential problems
Your dryer might seem like a perfectly safe device, but an air leak can cause you and your home some serious trouble:
Water damage. The air vented out of your dryer is very humid because it’s extracting moisture from your wet laundry. If it’s not venting outside, then all that moisture is venting inside your house—either directly into the laundry room or area, or even into your walls or attic space if that’s where the air leak is located. Over time, constant exposure to high humidity can lead to mold and moisture damage.
Fire hazard. If you’ve got a layer of dust and lint all over your laundry area thanks to an air leak from your dryer, congratulations, the chances that your house burns down just went up. Dryer lint is a terrific fuel source for a fire, and dryer fires can be devastating.
Health. Aside from the potential health issues created by mold growing due to the increased humidity, the air that’s leaking from your dryer isn’t exactly healthy to breathe. In fact, it’s absolutely packed with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that could lead to respiratory problems ranging from chronic cough to much, much worse.
Easy fix
Luckily, if you detect an air leak from your dryer vent ducts or hose, the fix is very simple:
Locate the leak. Run the dryer. You can use some of the same techniques used to find any air leak in the house, including lighting an incense stick and holding it near the dry vent hose or duct to see how the smoke blows, shining a light inside a duct or hose with the lights off to observe small gaps, and visually inspect the venting to see if there are obvious gaps or portions being moved by escaping airflow.
Repair or replace. If the leak is relatively small and your ductwork or plastic hose is otherwise in good condition, pick up some foil duct tape at your local hardware store and tape (or re-tape) the connections and any holes or gaps you’ve discovered. If the duct has deteriorated too much, replace it with a similar duct. If you hire a professional to do this, it’ll run you a few hundred bucks.
Once you’ve repaired your air leak, conduct your tests again to ensure you’ve sealed up all the leaks. Then clean up any lint and dust that have accumulated as a result, and breathe easy.
