How to Clean Exterior Air Vents of a Home

Commercial dryers produce considerable heat. For this reason, your dryer connects to an exterior air vent via a flexible hose to vent some of the heat outward. From time to time, lint from your fabrics can collect inside the hose and vent, and if it clogs the hose, the ventilation can become insufficient, potentially leading to fires. You can prevent this problem by cleaning your exterior vent and hose.

Vacuum cleaner with hose extension
Breathing mask
Goggles
Protective gloves
Fiberglass insulation

Instructions

- 1
  Unplug your dryer. Otherwise, you may experience a painful shock from static electricity while cleaning.
- 2
  Pull the dryer away from the wall and detach the flexible vent hose. Using a thin hose extension, vacuum the entire area behind the dryer. Insert the vacuum extension into the flexible hose and vacuum all of the accumulated dirt, dust and lint.
- 3
  Remove any insulation from around the flexible hose. Depending on the construction, you may have fiberglass insulation packed around the flexible hose where it connects to the exterior vent outdoors. Put on a breathing mask, goggles and rubber gloves. Pull the insulation away and vacuum the exterior part of the flexible hose near the wall. Replace the old insulation with new insulation.
- 4
  Reattach the flexible vent hose to your dryer. To prevent future lint accumulation, open the dryer, remove the lint trap and throw away any lint appearing on the screen. Do this after each load of laundry that passes through the dryer.
- 5
  Remove the lint plate from the exterior vent outdoors. Depending on the type of plate, you may need to remove screws or adjust metal fasteners to access the vent. Vacuum the inside of the vent as well as the vent plate, using your vacuum hose extension. Place the plate back onto the vent.
- 6
  Plug in your dryer.

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