Lint shows up everywhere. Even your belly button! The simple fact is that if clothing interacts with something (even itself), lint will be produced. As messy and potentially damaging as it can be, lint is a natural part of living the life of a clothed individual. But one of the places we are often confronted by large build-ups of lint is in the dryer.
What Is Lint?
Lint is short fabric fibers that have separated from a larger accumulation of cloth. There is a lot of lint processed during the processing of fabrics into their final forms (yarn, cloth, floor coverings, etc.), but any handling or storage of fabric produces some amount of lint.
Everything is in a constant state of entropy, so everything is falling apart. (Clothing is no exception). Just as your body is constantly shedding skin that turns to dust, your clothing is always molting. In an open system, enough dust can eventually require air duct cleaning, but in a small enclosed area like a dryer, accumulation is much faster.
Why Does My Dryer Make So Much Lint?
The dryer is not responsible for the amount of lint it produces. The issue lies with your clothing. Some fabrics produce more lint than others. But if you have seen an increase in the amount of lint in the dryer itself, you might be dealing with the blowback of old lint into the dryer.
Lint blowback happens as a result of a clogged system. This can be the result of not cleaning the lint trap. If the lint trap is cleaned, when was the last time the system underwent dryer vent cleaning? If it has been a while, the vent may have re-clogged, so lint cannot escape or is getting pulled in from the vent.
How Much Lint Does Your Lint Trap Catch?
Your lint trap cannot catch all the lint that is produced with a single dyer load. With every load, some amount of lint is entering the dryer vent without being caught by the lint trap. If the lint trap is already coated in lint, it will not catch more, so clean the trap after every load of laundry.
No matter how diligent you are with cleaning your lint trap, you will need to call for dryer vent cleaning eventually. The frequency that you will need professional dryer vent cleaning can be reduced, but the trap does not catch enough lint to prevent you from ever needing this service.
Best Practices For Limiting Dryer Lint
You can limit dryer lint by wearing clothing with material that stretches rather than breaks. Spandex and lycra are examples of fabrics that do not produce as much lint because they lose shape and form rather than material (which becomes lint).
If there is a lot of lint still ending up in your dryer, make sure the lint trap is clean. If the lint trap is clean, then there is most likely excessive lint in the dryer vent. It is possible to clean your dryer vent yourself, but you need the same professional tools that ventilation cleaning services use.
Having the tools is not enough. You also need to know how to use it properly. That is where The Duct Experts in Garland come in. With our professional cleaning, we can reduce the lint floating around in your dryer, improve the efficiency of your dryer, and ultimately help prevent a dryer fire.