casey342•13d agoTop Commenter

Rant: Customer told me my dryer vent work was dangerous - he was right

I had a guy call me out last spring after I replaced his dryer vent hose. He said I used the wrong type of foil and that it could trap lint and start a fire. At first I got defensive, but he pulled up a picture from a fire investigation report and showed me exactly how those cheap foil hoses burn. I switched to rigid metal elbows and semi-rigid aluminum that same week. Now I refuse to use anything but metal for any dryer vent job, no exceptions. It costs a bit more but my insurance guy even noticed and bumped my rates down a little. Has anyone else had a customer teach them something that made you change your whole method?

2 comments

2 Comments

scott.alex13d agoMost Upvoted

My buddy nearly burned his laundry room down using that cheap foil stuff last year.

shane_wilson13d ago

Hang on though @scott.alex, I gotta say that "Semi-rigid aluminum" is still not as good as the old school rigid metal pipe with the smooth interior walls. That corrugated stuff, even the aluminum kind, still has ridges that catch lint over time. I learned that after a buddy of mine pulled apart a dryer vent that was only two years old and it was half plugged up inside those crimped sections. The rigid elbows and straight pipe pieces are a pain to install but they stay smooth forever.