Stuff You Should NEVER Do As a Homeowner?
Weird stuff I find while looking at homes?
Interesting Home Inspections?
Adventures in Real Estate?
Whatever the title, here’s what happened. During a home inspection today I notice what appears to be a piece of window screening at the hookup for the dryer vent. You know, behind the dryer where the flexible tube goes.
I didn’t think anything of it until it was pointed out to me that the exit vent for the dryer on the outside of the house was broken. “Critters can get in there” is always my first thought. The outside vent looks like this:
Finally my brain put it together- critters WERE getting in the house, and perhaps the former owners (the home is a foreclosure) tried to fix it from inside. So maybe they put a piece of screen on the inside of the house over the dryer vent. Sure enough, upon further investigation, that is exactly what they did. Not a good idea at all. Because it can get blocked, leading to longer drying times, additional wear and tear on your dryer, more electricity use, and eventually even a Fire.
Maybe they didn’t own a ladder. Maybe they were lazy. Maybe they just really loved window screen and had a lot lying around and wanted it to put it to good use. Whatever the reason, I took the dryer vent pipe off and went to take the screen out.
When I took it apart, sure enough, the venting was blocked. The screen was full of something… What the heck?
See for yourself-
