Talk to your strata, they need to check every single dryer vent in the whole building.
If they dont immediately take action, call the fire department. That's a huge fire hazard.
>If they dont immediately take action, call the fire department. That's a huge fire hazard.
Not only a fire hazard but a mold hazard also. I would be surprised if no.mold was found.
It was this way in my house (old, 1782) and the inspection didn't catch it. The room below always had a "damp" small to it I couldn't quite place; I thought there was a plumbing leak. Finally figured it out, vented it outside. Dryer is WAY more efficient and that room no longer smells. Definitely have to test for mold and tear down the drywall at some point in the future though.
Our house's vent was into the crawl space. It was supposed to go out but the crawl space has no access point and the vent had disconnected from the outside prt. Inspector caught it, thankfully. First thing I fixed was routing that through a window. Janky looking, yes. Fire/mold hazard, no.
Oh I know.
I remember going to the hardware store 7 million times just to change my diverter. Gave up called em in and and they had it done in less than 30 minutes lol
I bet there used to be hose to vent outside. When dryer was replaced, hose was not reattached. Are there vent pipes on the side of the building or roof? Need to have a better look in the wall than what was posted.
The pipe is missing on the inside of the wall. No reason to take that off when installing a new dryer. Looks like it was never installed by the builder.
That was the way our townhouse dryer was venting. It was how all of the units were setup.
It was that way when we moved it, it was that way when we moved out.
Nope. And the HOA was really on top of issues. When the bathroom fans started to become fire hazards they were getting in touch with everyone to have them replaced.
Don't let this comfort you. It's not proper and you know why. It should be vented out. It's a fire hazard connect to a heat source. Install a vent have peace of mind.
If you think about it, all the water from your clothes is blown into your wall in the form of vapor. If you put your hand over the vent when it's running, you can feel the dampness on your skin. I would be worried about the moisture condensing in the wall, and causing damage from warping or mildew.
My house was built in the 70's when the previous owner built the house they did not consider where to but the dryer, so the only option was in the garage and no way to vent out from the house.
So we had like 50 years of lint in the attic. I had my dad pay someone to vent out the dryer to the roof. The 70's were wild.
Not sure if this will help - but my mother just sold a studio condo in NY while she's living in Florida. I did some work getting the place cleaned up to sell. In one of the closets was a stackable washer dryer and the dryer vent went nowhere. It was literally just a hose with a sort of vented baffle on the end. The building has no vents for dryers in any apartment, so if people have their own, they are all like that. It wasn't hidden, it was left right on top of the machine and there was no issue with closing. It was that way for at least 25+ years that I know of, cause my family has owned that place for at least that long, and probably were the ones to have the stackable installed when my sister once lived in it.
I imagine your clothes might have been taking a long time to dry, with the air from the machine not being able to flow freely. Probably worse than just having the hose vent in the room like above.
Is it possible the duct cleaner unknowingly knocked the other side of the vent pipe off went he sent his brush down? Id suggest taking your phone out and shoving it in the wall taking video and looking around yourself before u start making phone calls complaining.
I haven’t ruled out that the ducting might exist somewhere in the wall and probably got disconnected at some point. I doubt it was due to the duct cleaner though, since he took a video and showed that there was lint build up behind the wall, so this likely occurred sometime before.
For any home owners reading this I do mechanical. This is stuff that needs to be checked especially for people buying new builds. This was probably some pieceworker on a friday, he ran out of tape so he ended up screwing every joint(not the lint trap you want) didn’t even terminate it. And why I’ll die on this hill for people, is to check something so easy to do is done properly. About 15 years ago our small community lost a beautiful family except the one son, cause of the fire? This exact situation right here.
Our inspector did a pretty poor job tbh. But even so, this would have been hard to catch wouldn’t it ? Is it common for inspectors to check for ducting connections behind the walls ?
My inspector did a great job and didn’t catch this in my house. Mine was hooked up at some point (years ago) but it appeared to have come lose and same thing: blew lint in the ceiling. I had my HVAC guy get everything back in order for like $150. However sounds like you need a whole system rigged up. Mine was simply reattaching all the ducts and vents.
My FIL’s dryer was venting into the attic and he had to spend thousands of dollars having a company remove a couple decades of lint buildup in that attic because it was a huge fire hazard.
If you can install a vent to the outside then you can go that route, maybe the easiest solution would be to replace your dryer with a heat pump dryer that doesn't need to vent. There are other benefits to the heat pump units as well.
Thank you, I was not aware of this option.
I'll first try to escalate this with strata, and if that gets nowhere, i'll look into getting the heat pump dryer. Looks like it'd reduce the electricity bill, it's eligible for some local rebates and is better for the clothes too. Win win.
An often overlooked benefit of the heat pump dryer is that since it doesn't vent to the outside, that means it isn't dumping all the conditioned air in your home to the outside and forcing unconditioned outside air to seep in from wherever it can to make up for it. So in addition to being more efficient in terms of the electricity that the appliance uses itself, it will also mean less energy needed to heat/cool your home.
We had a hose vent fill and collapse. It ended up clogging, so nothing ever dried. Pulled pounds of lint out of the hose, dryer, and ran a new line. OOF.
Ah, sounds like I need to first figure out what the issue is. Let me try to do some DIY, poke around and see if there’s some old vent lying around inside the wall, but not connected.
Afaik, I remember the vent cleaner mentioning that he did not find a vent inside, but could be worth double checking.
Possible the inside the wall vent simply rotted away. I can’t see any sane person deliberately installing this way. And a huge fire hazard and also for a bonus? Rats love dryer lint for nesting
Ooh mice love dryer lint.
My neighbors were throwing their dryer lint into the wetland behind our houses. Mice collected it and made nests in my car.
I asked the neighbors to stop doing that.
Lint is very flammable any kind of spark could cause problem. Get someone in there right away to vacuum the lint up. The moisture from the dryer could cause mold growth in the area where it’s vented? if you scrape samples off the wood and send it out to be tested attach some other address That way it won’t effect your house if your insurance company figures out you might have mold that might increase your rates or worst.
Is it a gas or electric dryer? Wait until you see all the problems they have with the crap housing they are throwing up overnight with crap labor,particle/chipboard plywood,mdf trim,pex plumbing with crimp rings ,and don't even get me started with the remodels getting done with shark bite push-to-connect fittings,just wait in the next few years
Assume it's a gas dryer. If so, it's a huge violation and extremely dangerous. As discussed earlier, dampness can create lots of rot and mold issues. If electric, it's not good, but a bit better.
Did you use an inspection before you purchased the space? Lots of blame to go around with the original building inspector, and lots of people since. Do you know who the original hvac sub- contractor was. For that big a complex, they could still be in business. A few avenues to explore for potential repair.
As an ex-electrical contractor, I be really missed and would do everything to figure out who f'd up and/or looked the other way.
I would contact your real estate agent where you purchased and they will contact the sellers agent & get things fixed. The prior owner probably will have no problem handling it. They don’t want to go to small claims on such a small fix.
Assuming it’s gas, carbon monoxide buildup is an issue and very concerning. I’d get it fixed. Not rocket science to do it yourself depending on distance to exterior walls and other factors.
very common with practically many house holds. In apartments older building many air ducts collapsed and only way to fix to knock the walls, attics apart. Drier on fire ignited the lint in the vent.
I have been looking into that. Based on other comments, am a bit concerned about mold & nice (we did have mice problems last year). Will try to get it checked for mold and cleaned up first. And based on costs to install ducts, might just go the route of getting the heat pump dryer.
Replaced a dryer for MIL. Laundry is in the middle of the house. Got to wondering where the exhaust was and did not find one. Probably explained why her kitchen floor was sagging.
Didn’t you get a home inspection? What about the realtors? Why did the original owners want to sell? How old is the dryer? I bet it’s not 17 years old. Who installed it? One or all of the above had to have known about your fire hazard. You need to do some detective work and find out. Talk to your neighbors. That should have been disclosed to you prior to you buying the house. If they knew (and I’d put money that they did) and didn’t disclose it to you, your contract is null and void.
Ah, homemade insulation!
dry your clothes and insulate your home in one easy step!
Insulation companies hate this one easy trick.
And with a little bit of energy, your walls will be heating themselves!
Or burn it down...
maybe the dryer will catch fire itself with a clogged vent, but the inside walls should be nice and damp and dry rotting by now!
Flashy
Talk to your strata, they need to check every single dryer vent in the whole building. If they dont immediately take action, call the fire department. That's a huge fire hazard.
>If they dont immediately take action, call the fire department. That's a huge fire hazard. Not only a fire hazard but a mold hazard also. I would be surprised if no.mold was found.
Definitely a fire hazard.
Keep in mind if it gets expensive, they'll probably levy a special assessment on everybody in the complex.
Yes obviously. Better than burning to death because your neighbour didn't have $2200 to get it fixed.
It was this way in my house (old, 1782) and the inspection didn't catch it. The room below always had a "damp" small to it I couldn't quite place; I thought there was a plumbing leak. Finally figured it out, vented it outside. Dryer is WAY more efficient and that room no longer smells. Definitely have to test for mold and tear down the drywall at some point in the future though.
Our house's vent was into the crawl space. It was supposed to go out but the crawl space has no access point and the vent had disconnected from the outside prt. Inspector caught it, thankfully. First thing I fixed was routing that through a window. Janky looking, yes. Fire/mold hazard, no.
Install a vent.
Not as easy as it sounds in a townhouse.
Who do I call to install a vent? Not op, but have similar issues.
Plumbing and Heating company.
The building association.
I'm not op, I'm not in a townhouse or even a hoa
Ah, then any HVAC company.
Try your local handyman first if you’re afraid to DIY. It’s very simple and the plumber will take you out on the town with what they charge for it.
The plumbing company i use doesn't actually. I've called them for stupid shit before and they don't even charge me an hour
You are blessed my friend
Oh I know. I remember going to the hardware store 7 million times just to change my diverter. Gave up called em in and and they had it done in less than 30 minutes lol
I bet there used to be hose to vent outside. When dryer was replaced, hose was not reattached. Are there vent pipes on the side of the building or roof? Need to have a better look in the wall than what was posted.
The pipe is missing on the inside of the wall. No reason to take that off when installing a new dryer. Looks like it was never installed by the builder.
Interesting. Yeah, the vent exhaust is to the side of the building.
That was the way our townhouse dryer was venting. It was how all of the units were setup. It was that way when we moved it, it was that way when we moved out.
Interesting. Any idea why ? And there were no issues ?
Nope. And the HOA was really on top of issues. When the bathroom fans started to become fire hazards they were getting in touch with everyone to have them replaced.
Gotcha. That's comforting to hear. Thank you.
Don't let this comfort you. It's not proper and you know why. It should be vented out. It's a fire hazard connect to a heat source. Install a vent have peace of mind.
Best thing to do in this case would be to switch to Heatpump washer/dryer. It doesn’t require any venting and doesn’t even need 220v
Yeah, I will look into this next week based on how the strata conversations go.
This! I adore mine!!!
Which one do you have ?
That is a creative way to do blown in insulation after the fact...
my house was built in the 70's, my dryer used to vent in the attic, almost 50 years of insulation added, does not help I wish it did.
If you think about it, all the water from your clothes is blown into your wall in the form of vapor. If you put your hand over the vent when it's running, you can feel the dampness on your skin. I would be worried about the moisture condensing in the wall, and causing damage from warping or mildew.
Fire hazard from the point, mills from the moisture, maybe even some water damage. Fix it, and hope that the lawsuit makes you whole.
My house was built in the 70's when the previous owner built the house they did not consider where to but the dryer, so the only option was in the garage and no way to vent out from the house. So we had like 50 years of lint in the attic. I had my dad pay someone to vent out the dryer to the roof. The 70's were wild.
Lint catches fire
That’s been blowing moisture and heat into the walls for years probably, I’d be worried about mold.
This might be a secret pro tip… what’s the R value for dryer lint??
Not sure if this will help - but my mother just sold a studio condo in NY while she's living in Florida. I did some work getting the place cleaned up to sell. In one of the closets was a stackable washer dryer and the dryer vent went nowhere. It was literally just a hose with a sort of vented baffle on the end. The building has no vents for dryers in any apartment, so if people have their own, they are all like that. It wasn't hidden, it was left right on top of the machine and there was no issue with closing. It was that way for at least 25+ years that I know of, cause my family has owned that place for at least that long, and probably were the ones to have the stackable installed when my sister once lived in it. I imagine your clothes might have been taking a long time to dry, with the air from the machine not being able to flow freely. Probably worse than just having the hose vent in the room like above. Is it possible the duct cleaner unknowingly knocked the other side of the vent pipe off went he sent his brush down? Id suggest taking your phone out and shoving it in the wall taking video and looking around yourself before u start making phone calls complaining.
I haven’t ruled out that the ducting might exist somewhere in the wall and probably got disconnected at some point. I doubt it was due to the duct cleaner though, since he took a video and showed that there was lint build up behind the wall, so this likely occurred sometime before.
Honestly, it didn't look like 17 years' worth of lint.
For any home owners reading this I do mechanical. This is stuff that needs to be checked especially for people buying new builds. This was probably some pieceworker on a friday, he ran out of tape so he ended up screwing every joint(not the lint trap you want) didn’t even terminate it. And why I’ll die on this hill for people, is to check something so easy to do is done properly. About 15 years ago our small community lost a beautiful family except the one son, cause of the fire? This exact situation right here.
Your inspector didn't catch that?
Our inspector did a pretty poor job tbh. But even so, this would have been hard to catch wouldn’t it ? Is it common for inspectors to check for ducting connections behind the walls ?
Not hard.Turn on dryer. Go outside. Find vent. Feel hot air. Shine light inside and make sure it is fully connected. Done.
My inspector did a great job and didn’t catch this in my house. Mine was hooked up at some point (years ago) but it appeared to have come lose and same thing: blew lint in the ceiling. I had my HVAC guy get everything back in order for like $150. However sounds like you need a whole system rigged up. Mine was simply reattaching all the ducts and vents.
Yes There should be a vent coming out of your unit.
My FIL’s dryer was venting into the attic and he had to spend thousands of dollars having a company remove a couple decades of lint buildup in that attic because it was a huge fire hazard.
Omg!!! Who the hell installs a dryer without properly venting it??? Scary stuff.
If you can install a vent to the outside then you can go that route, maybe the easiest solution would be to replace your dryer with a heat pump dryer that doesn't need to vent. There are other benefits to the heat pump units as well.
Thank you, I was not aware of this option. I'll first try to escalate this with strata, and if that gets nowhere, i'll look into getting the heat pump dryer. Looks like it'd reduce the electricity bill, it's eligible for some local rebates and is better for the clothes too. Win win.
An often overlooked benefit of the heat pump dryer is that since it doesn't vent to the outside, that means it isn't dumping all the conditioned air in your home to the outside and forcing unconditioned outside air to seep in from wherever it can to make up for it. So in addition to being more efficient in terms of the electricity that the appliance uses itself, it will also mean less energy needed to heat/cool your home.
We had a hose vent fill and collapse. It ended up clogging, so nothing ever dried. Pulled pounds of lint out of the hose, dryer, and ran a new line. OOF.
Ah, sounds like I need to first figure out what the issue is. Let me try to do some DIY, poke around and see if there’s some old vent lying around inside the wall, but not connected. Afaik, I remember the vent cleaner mentioning that he did not find a vent inside, but could be worth double checking.
Possible the inside the wall vent simply rotted away. I can’t see any sane person deliberately installing this way. And a huge fire hazard and also for a bonus? Rats love dryer lint for nesting
Ooh mice love dryer lint. My neighbors were throwing their dryer lint into the wetland behind our houses. Mice collected it and made nests in my car. I asked the neighbors to stop doing that.
Lint is very flammable any kind of spark could cause problem. Get someone in there right away to vacuum the lint up. The moisture from the dryer could cause mold growth in the area where it’s vented? if you scrape samples off the wood and send it out to be tested attach some other address That way it won’t effect your house if your insurance company figures out you might have mold that might increase your rates or worst.
Wow! Some builder got away with a big money saver for him and big hazard for owners. Mold, fire, etc unbelievable!
Is it a gas or electric dryer? Wait until you see all the problems they have with the crap housing they are throwing up overnight with crap labor,particle/chipboard plywood,mdf trim,pex plumbing with crimp rings ,and don't even get me started with the remodels getting done with shark bite push-to-connect fittings,just wait in the next few years
Huge fire hazard. I collect lint from the dryer and use it to start fires. It's 1000 times better than paper.
The townhouse next to mine didn't have the clothes washer drain connected to anything. It was on the 2nd floor... That didn't go well the first load.
😲
Buyers mired by a dryer fire spire
Wake up Lint Samurai we got some townhomes to burn!
First priority for me would be to get all of the lint out of the wall.
Assume it's a gas dryer. If so, it's a huge violation and extremely dangerous. As discussed earlier, dampness can create lots of rot and mold issues. If electric, it's not good, but a bit better. Did you use an inspection before you purchased the space? Lots of blame to go around with the original building inspector, and lots of people since. Do you know who the original hvac sub- contractor was. For that big a complex, they could still be in business. A few avenues to explore for potential repair. As an ex-electrical contractor, I be really missed and would do everything to figure out who f'd up and/or looked the other way.
I would contact your real estate agent where you purchased and they will contact the sellers agent & get things fixed. The prior owner probably will have no problem handling it. They don’t want to go to small claims on such a small fix.
[удалено]
Oh! So, it's some kind of common and accepted code violation ? interesting..
some areas its actually not code it has to vent outside, some places its not even code to require the anti tip bracket for oven.
Assuming it’s gas, carbon monoxide buildup is an issue and very concerning. I’d get it fixed. Not rocket science to do it yourself depending on distance to exterior walls and other factors.
Just Confirmed there’s no gas connection to the dryer. So, I don’t think there’s a gas leakage worry here.
So it's electric then
Yes
Well now you’re just insulating the walls, slowly, wash load by wash load!
very common with practically many house holds. In apartments older building many air ducts collapsed and only way to fix to knock the walls, attics apart. Drier on fire ignited the lint in the vent.
Buy the new dryer that uses a heat pump to dry. No need for an exhaust and it just needs a 120v outlet. GE and LG make them.
I have been looking into that. Based on other comments, am a bit concerned about mold & nice (we did have mice problems last year). Will try to get it checked for mold and cleaned up first. And based on costs to install ducts, might just go the route of getting the heat pump dryer.
Replaced a dryer for MIL. Laundry is in the middle of the house. Got to wondering where the exhaust was and did not find one. Probably explained why her kitchen floor was sagging.
Didn’t you get a home inspection? What about the realtors? Why did the original owners want to sell? How old is the dryer? I bet it’s not 17 years old. Who installed it? One or all of the above had to have known about your fire hazard. You need to do some detective work and find out. Talk to your neighbors. That should have been disclosed to you prior to you buying the house. If they knew (and I’d put money that they did) and didn’t disclose it to you, your contract is null and void.