Flooded dryer vent due to heavy rain

Is my dryer safe to use after the dryer vent flooded with water. We removed the water with sa shop vac, but now the dryer smells very musty.

Reply to
Mimi
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Depends on what got wet. Just the vent hose or did it backup into the machine? I'd crank it up empty to see if it works and that may dry out the must odor. If circuit breaker trips I'd call a service tech if it is fairly new, dump it if it is fairly old. Service call can be $75 to $100 easily.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

That depends on what actually got wet!

E.g., growing up, our dryer was in the basement with the vent above grade. Had the vent "flooded with water", the dryer itself would have been

*swamped* with water -- ensuring that most of the mechanism. heating coils, etc. were wetted in that action.

Here, our vent is up through the roof so a similar problem would present.

My neighbor's vent directly out the side wall so there is less of an issue. Though the vent is still "above" the level of the dryer mechanism.

What sort of dryer -- gas or electric?

How did you "remove the water"? Just that which *surrounded* the dryer? Or, did you disassemble the dryer and verify that there was no water within?

Reply to
Don Y

This is another of those reposts from years ago, but I thought I'd reply for the sake of others. ANYTHING electrical that gets wet, MUST be thoroughly dry before plugging it in, otherwise you risk more damage to the device and risk yourself with shock or worse.

Remove the back panel, clean out all lint while you're at it, because lint holds water and is probably what smells musty. Then blow a fan into it until its completely dry. A dehumidifier wont hurt either!

Most electric devices that got wet, work perfectly fine as long as you let it thoroughly dry before connecting it to power.

I obtained some computers that were in a flood. The hard drives and CD drives and floppy drives (if they had one) were trash, but the main board, memory and cards as well as the power supply worked fine. But I left them sit in the hot sun for a full week before plugging them in.

Reply to
Jerry.Tan

Often, the *edge* of the drum is lined with felt as a sort of "lubricant" (else metal on metal).

Connectors can corrode -- depending on the plating material.

Reply to
Don Y

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