all good suggestions. My current Richmond American home circa 1999 has a 5 inch vertical vent for the dryer one 4 inch 90 then 5 inch vertically for at least 20 feet. Works fine.
I would think the dryer would be easy compared with putting in the plumbing especially the drain.
We can simply go into the ceiling then horizontally out to one of
Straight up through the roof seems ok to me. Most dryers recommend 25 feet or less run of venting, subtract five feet of vent for every elbow. Straight up may get you about fifteen feet, and one elbow. Greg
Years ago, it was common practice to run the dryer exh up to a roof vent. In your case, that's not an excessively long run and convection will help.
However.......I would first check with the local bldg inspector to see if the practice is allowed and what vent terminal requirements would have to be met. You will (should) be needing a permit for the closet installation in any event; there may be more questions to be answered about that.
Jim
Tom, How did your installations deal with cleaning lint from the duct? Tom Baker
We would like to move our washer and dryer to a closet in the middle of our house, so we can use the laundry room space to enlarge our kitchen. The question is what to do with the exhaust vent for the dryer. This closet runs right in the middle, under the highest point in our roof, one floor, hip style roof. The inside ceilings are 8 ft high, couldn't tell you how high the roof is as I've never been in the attic. I'd be surprised if you can stand upright in the center however. Given this lack of info, the appliance sales guy said I might as well hang laundry out to dry on a line, that the exhaust wouldn't be able to travel up that far well enough to allow the clothes to dry quickly enough to be acceptable. Running the vent without going into the ceiling at least would be an extremely involved process. We can simply go into the ceiling then horizontally out to one of the eaves, but that would add two more 90 degree turns. Any thoughts?
-- Melissa Please remove (yourshoes) to reply by email
It somehow sounds like your sales guy should stick to sales. It sounds like he is worried about the fact that the exhaust is going up as opposed to over. I have heard that one before, but given the the exhaust is warm, it naturally rises and you could need less, not more effort to exhaust out the roof straight up than the same total distance in any other direction, especially if other directions required bends.
You dryer should have specifics about total distance, but most, as I recall, allow about 50-90 total feet minus 10 feet for each 90º bend. You should be fine going out the roof.
On Sun 06 Mar 2005 07:28:31a, Melissa wrote in alt.home.repair:
Do you have a basement or crawlspace?
We are on a slab, otherwise this would be much easier. Thanks for the replies guys, sounds like that part is workable. Plumbing is our next concern, so we'll have a plumber out to actually look at the appropriate places to advise. We have a bathroom that shares a wall with the closet so access to water and drainage won't be an issue, we just need to find out if the pipes will accomodate the water needs. I need to investigate this stuff before we plan further. Hubby is the type of guy to rip out walls and ask questions later.
We are considering also replacing the washer and dryer. I remember hearing a couple of years ago commercials that hyped dryers that dry as fast as the washer can wash. Salesman said those would be the front load washers and dryers, as they get more water out of the loads. Is this the case? Seems odd to hype the dryers drying as fast as the wash when it's the washer accomplishing the deed? We need super capacity 27" or less in depth. Checked consumerreports.com but didn't really find anything that referred to drying speed. The pair we have now are fine, but a load takes at least 1.5 hours to dry, often much longer. Given our 6 person family, we generate a lot of laundry, and it takes forever it seems to get through with the slow dry time. Ours are super capacity units, the dryer is 5.7 cu ft, the washer
3.2 cu ft, both GE, 3.5 yrs old.-- Melissa Please remove (yourshoes) to reply by email
True, the warm air will rise, but it won't have enough force to take the lint with it. Only about 70% of the dryer air goes through the lint filter. The rest is allowed to bypass the filter...I assume to prevent problems if the filter is full. This air carries lint with it and will quickly clog the vent line if the line is too long or too high in the air. The suggestion of a booster fan in the line would probably help. I sold dryers in AZ where it is common to run straight up through the roof and I postponed the replacement of many dryers by telling the customer to simple clean out his vent line. It would usually be plugged right where it made it's first turn up into the wall. The worse was of course when the builder put another 90 degree bend in the ceiling to go horizontally out a side wall. Really hard to clean that out. Tom.
1.5 HOURS! Isn't that about twice as long as normal?
You may need an additional dryer.
I agree that too long is bad, lint or no lint. I really don't see how longer is worse for lint, other that it means more to keep clean. I really don't see how high has anything in this. Assuming the total length is not too long and there are not too many bends, up or over is the same concerning lint. In fact up might be even easier to clean if it were to fall back down so you could clean it out at the first bend; but of course it does not, you still need to clean them.
I have one on mine since the total distance and minimum number of bends is beyond that specified by the manufacturer.
I might also add here that the specs for duct length is based on solid metal pipe, not that corrugated junk or worse yet the flexible plastic stuff.
I agree. I have to disassemble part of my line in the basement for cleaning. And you are right, I would expect most of the lint to be at the bends. It is a shame that most people don't know they need to service these things. Maybe even worst that they don't know enough at the time of installation to consider the problems of maintaining them at that time.
Make a simple drawing and go to your city building department. Mebbe they will have some good free advice.
Would your kitchen remodel work if the w/d were left where they are? Could use the closet for pantry space and not go to extremes with an iffy installation?
That's a darn long time to dry a load of clothes. Stuffed tight? When I did laundry for 5, my dryer time was about 30 min., sometimes 40. I would have been doing laundry 24/7 if a load took an hour and a half. Is the vent clean and clear?
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