One Dryer Maintenance Tip That Can Change Your Life
Why should you clean your lint trap? It might seem like a tedious thing, but cleaning out your dryer’s lint trap should be done every time you use your dryer. Find out why below!
Cleaning out the lint trap in your dryer helps keep your dryer working better longer, and can save you from unexpected repairs. If you need a dryer repair in Langley, call the team at Quick Appliance Repair We do same-day and emergency service at affordable prices.
Safety Risks
If not done regularly, you not only risk your appliance not working properly, but you are potentially putting yourself at risk for a fire as well. According to experts, over 15,000 fires are started by dryers every year. Lint and other debris builds up and reduces the airflow through the dryer, which causes the dryer to exhaust gases and results in fire. Just taking 2 minutes to clean out your lint trap not only saves you an appliance repair, but saves you from a lot more damage as well.
How To Clean Your Lint Trap
Your dryer lint trap should be cleaned each time before you turn on a cycle. There are a couple of different ways to clean out your dryer lint trap:
- Quick Clean: First, locate where the lint trap is; it might be inside, on top, or in front of the dryer, depending on the make and model of your dryer. Once you have found the lint trap, carefully remove it; the lint trap will just slide out for most dryer models. The easiest way to clean off the lint trap is to take your fingers and just scrape the lint off into a trash bin, and then replace. This is good for just a quick clean between cycles.
- Brush Clean: For a better clean, take a brush and use that to remove the lint, as this will really help remove everything from the screen. Simply hold the lint trap over a trash bin, and using the brush, slowly push the brush over the screen, pushing the lint into the trash. This is best done away from the dryer so you don’t accidently brush some of the lint back inside the unit.
Once you have removed the lint from the screen, take the brush and sweep it inside the trap door to remove any lint that may have fallen off when you remove the screen. The big pieces will stick to the brush and you can just shake those off into the trash.
To get rid of the smaller lint pieces that couldn’t be reached, place the screen back into the dryer and turn the dryer onto a cycle that has no heat. This will send the last bits of lint into the exhaust pipe.
- Wash: You should wash the dryer lint screen from time to time as well. Start by following the instructions above. Once all of the lint has been removed wet the screen with warm water. Take a scrubbing brush and and dish detergent and clean both sides of the screen; be care when scrubbing so that you don’t tear the screen.
When you’ve cleaned both sides, rinse the screen off and check to make sure that there is no lint or other residue still stuck to it. If there is, continue scrubbing until the screen is completely free of any residue. When you are satisfied, dry the screen off with a cloth or a paper towel and insert it back into the dryer.
