If you want to find out how you can prevent dryer fire. Washing and drying clothes is normally part of our daily or weekly routine. However, it is crucial to keep your clothes dryer in proper working condition to maintain the safety of your home and your family. Ensuring that you avoid these specific bad habits can help you avoid a potentially tragic house fire.
Regular Servicing
Experts suggest that the primary cause of clothes dryer fires is failure to clean and maintain them. Check behind the dryer where lint has a tendency to build up. You should clean your dryer annually and perform inspections of the hose and vent for any blockages twice a year.
It is a good idea to consider scheduling a qualified service person to clean the interior of the dryer chassis annually. This will minimize the amount of lint that accumulates as well as give you a professional opinion of the safety status of your unit. A professional can also inspect the venting and exhaust system. To ensure that that this procedure is done correctly, employ only certified dryer exhaust technicians.
Clean the Lint Filter Before and After Each Load of Laundry
The most common sources of ignition in dryer fires are household dust and lint. They collect within the dryer cavity, which sits closely to the heating elements. Here, temperatures can reach 550°, which can easily start a fire. Neglecting to clean our your lint filter is something that you should never do.
A good habit to adopt during your laundry routine would be to clean the lint screen before and after every drying cycle. This is an obvious first line of defense of dryer fire prevention. In addition, wiping down the interior of the dryer will remove excess lint buildup that the screen fails to catch. This is a less obvious step that most people neglect to do, but is important all the same.
It is crucial that you never run a dryer without a lint filter either, as this is removing this built-in defense against hazardous lint buildup. This may seem like common sense, but you’d be surprised how often it happens.
Avoid Overloading Your Dryer
It might seem more efficient to put as much laundry in as you can. However, this can be a serious mistake. Not only can the excess weight cause your machine to break down – it can also cause the temperatures in your unit to rise, increasing your risk of starting a fire.
When you put a lot of clothes in your dryer, the pulleys, drum belt, and spindle bearings have to work much harder than usual. This results in higher temperatures and increased friction.
Luckily, it’s easy to prevent this – simply do your laundry in smaller batches!
Check Your Gas Line
If you have a gas dryer and it catches fire, it can lead to disaster – you might even have an explosion. You should have your gas line professionally on a regular basis. A technician will inspect your gas line and make sure you don’t have any problems, such as gas leaks.
Make sure to stop using your dryer at once if you start to smell gas or burning.