The Dryer Again

It was 2-1/2 months ago when Vince pulled the cap off the dryer vent, and tried to clean it out.

This is what was happening: The clothes could be totally dry but if they stayed in the dryer overnight, they were damp the next morning. The lint that came out of the lint filter was damp. I clean the filter when I start the next load and sometimes it might be several days between loads because I use the clothes line a lot. If it was more than 4 or 5 days, I could squeeze water out of the lint.

I’ve lived in areas where it’s horribly humid and never had this happen. As dry as it is here, I couldn’t figure it out.

Vince tried cleaning out the vent area and it might have helped a little but last week, it had gotten really bad. I could wipe water out of the inside of the dryer. I told Vince we’re either going to have to figure this out or get a repairman out here.

Our laundry room is tiny to start with but we’ve stacked the dryer on top of the washer and put a shelving unit in there in order to store more “stuff” that doesn’t fit in the kitchen. When Vince said “We’re going to have to take everything off that shelf and move it out of there so I can take the dryer down”, I was thinking . . no, thanks. I’ll just use the clothes line from now on!

I kept thinking about what on earth could be causing that moisture in the dryer. We’ve had that same setup for 8 years now and never had a problem.

Then it hit me . . we keep our house really cold at night . . . sometimes the thermostat is set on 64. No “save the environment” speech please. I live in Texas. It’s hot! I’m old and have hot flashes and a good night’s sleep is important.

The laundry room is about 5 x 6 and it has an air conditioner vent. The family room/kitchen/dining room is probably 30 x 20 and there are three air conditioner vents. The extra bedrooms are 12 x 12 and they each have one vent. The laundry room is my go to room in the summer when I’m hot or in the winter when I’m cold. I started thinking maybe it has something to do with that room being so cold because we keep the door closed, and the warm air coming in through the vent so Vince pulled enough off the shelf to reach behind the dryer and inspect the vent hose. I suspect there may have been a mouse in there because there was a hole about the size of a 50 cent piece in that metallic like hose and the cold air from the room was meeting the hot air coming through the vent from outside and that must have been what was causing the moisture in there. Today is the fifth day the inside of the dryer has been dry.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the problem is fixed and the mouse decided he’d rather not live inside our house. I have wheat and other things stored in there and I didn’t see any signs of a mouse having chewed into that nor did I see mouse droppings but, for whatever reason, there was a hole in that vent line, which has been fixed.