(Cross-indexed under the heading "But... whaddya DO all day?!?")
An out-of-state shipmate rents her condo to a couple we've befriended. As tenants go they're not dangerous but they don't appear to have a lot of handyman experience and we get all the "How do we fix this?" calls. The condo is 14 years old, they're original owners, and they've rented it out for the last two years.
Last week's call was "It takes two cycles and over an hour for our dryer to do a load of towels." We went through all the troubleshooting questions and, yup, it sounded like their dryer exhaust was plugged. We had cleaned their dryer less than a year ago but we went over to take a look-- I figured 30-45 minutes tops.
While I was unloading our [-]Shopvac[/-] exhaust-cleaning tools from the car my spouse scampered ahead into the garage, moved the dryer & hose, poked her hand in the exhaust pipe, pulled out a couple handfuls of lint, saw it was clear to its turn, and said "Hey Nords, I think we're done here!" But being a nuke I wanted to check both ends of the exhaust. I noticed that the pipe went back 18", turned down below the garage, and disappeared.
By the time I found the exhaust vent I'd gone from the front of the house to the back-- about 25'. The lot slopes away from the house (which is over a crawl space) so the vent was about 10' off the ground under the back deck. When spouse blew the Shopvac through the dryer connection I actually heard burbling water. Hmmm, probably not a good sign.
When I pulled the exhaust grille off the ~4"x18" ducting I saw a puddle of water. Then I looked into the crawlspace and noticed how badly the ductwork was sagging from the joist hangers-- it was full of water.
I went into the crawlspace along the ductwork and discovered that, with the exhaust pipe, it was more like 40' and three right-angle turns (down, along, and out). The ducting didn't rattle or sound hollow-- it was like knocking on a tree trunk.
So I broke the joint between the exhaust pipe and the ductwork. We fished the exhaust pipe at just over six feet, of which two feet was plugged solid. [Insert Three Stooges chimney-cleaning episode here.] The rest of the ductwork was full of 14 years of lint & water-- and, no doubt, stachybotrys. I ended up pulling about a third of the ductwork for show & tell and letting the six feet of dryer exhaust pipe just shoot down into the crawlspace dirt.
We sent a couple dozen photos to our shipmate, who's forwarded them to the HOA. The gated neighborhood has at least 100 units and a full-time manager who is probably not going to be my friend.
Hey, thefed, wanna spend the winter in Hawaii?
An out-of-state shipmate rents her condo to a couple we've befriended. As tenants go they're not dangerous but they don't appear to have a lot of handyman experience and we get all the "How do we fix this?" calls. The condo is 14 years old, they're original owners, and they've rented it out for the last two years.
Last week's call was "It takes two cycles and over an hour for our dryer to do a load of towels." We went through all the troubleshooting questions and, yup, it sounded like their dryer exhaust was plugged. We had cleaned their dryer less than a year ago but we went over to take a look-- I figured 30-45 minutes tops.
While I was unloading our [-]Shopvac[/-] exhaust-cleaning tools from the car my spouse scampered ahead into the garage, moved the dryer & hose, poked her hand in the exhaust pipe, pulled out a couple handfuls of lint, saw it was clear to its turn, and said "Hey Nords, I think we're done here!" But being a nuke I wanted to check both ends of the exhaust. I noticed that the pipe went back 18", turned down below the garage, and disappeared.
By the time I found the exhaust vent I'd gone from the front of the house to the back-- about 25'. The lot slopes away from the house (which is over a crawl space) so the vent was about 10' off the ground under the back deck. When spouse blew the Shopvac through the dryer connection I actually heard burbling water. Hmmm, probably not a good sign.
When I pulled the exhaust grille off the ~4"x18" ducting I saw a puddle of water. Then I looked into the crawlspace and noticed how badly the ductwork was sagging from the joist hangers-- it was full of water.
I went into the crawlspace along the ductwork and discovered that, with the exhaust pipe, it was more like 40' and three right-angle turns (down, along, and out). The ducting didn't rattle or sound hollow-- it was like knocking on a tree trunk.
So I broke the joint between the exhaust pipe and the ductwork. We fished the exhaust pipe at just over six feet, of which two feet was plugged solid. [Insert Three Stooges chimney-cleaning episode here.] The rest of the ductwork was full of 14 years of lint & water-- and, no doubt, stachybotrys. I ended up pulling about a third of the ductwork for show & tell and letting the six feet of dryer exhaust pipe just shoot down into the crawlspace dirt.
We sent a couple dozen photos to our shipmate, who's forwarded them to the HOA. The gated neighborhood has at least 100 units and a full-time manager who is probably not going to be my friend.
Hey, thefed, wanna spend the winter in Hawaii?
Attachments
Last edited:
