Can paint fumes be sucked into a clothes dryer?
Question:Whenever my clothes dryer is running, it smells like something is burning. Since I recently painted, the repairman says paint fumes can be sucked into the dryer causing the smell. However, I was noticing a slight burning smell even before I painted, but he insisted that it was paint fumes when he ran the dryer. Could there be other reasons? I have cleaned out the lint trap as well as I could.
Answers:
if you suspect a problem, you may be right.
by design, a dryer sucks air in from your home, heats it up, blows it on tumbling clothes and pushes it out of your house. **you should never smell anything from the dryer untill you open the door!** (the same is true for commercial bathrooms in buildings and airplanes)
ask yourself a few questions...
how old is the dryer? is it gas or electric? how long has it been since it was last serviced? was your recent service person interested in a "good" or mearly a "fast" service call.
on all electric dryers they can get loose wiring on the heat tunnel and start to smolder the wiring just outside.
on gas dryers... they can accumulate minerals, ash, rust flakes from the heat exchanger and other mystery contaminants on the burner and add flavor to the air or clog the burner and force flames to shoot out in directions not intended.
(home furnaces must be serviced once a year and so should your dryer!)
all dryers have electric motors to turn the drum either directly or with a cloth/rubber coated belt. the motors can get old and wear out or burn up ( they are also painted...). the belts can get loose and motor pullies can spin and friction burn the belt.
lint traps...
lint traps are just the tip of the ice-burg.
depending on design you may have lots of places for things to get caught and smolder.
case in point...
I recently received a free washer and dryer (two years old) from some friends. they have two short hair terriers. anyway, to get the dryer into my house I had to dis-assemble it to get it in my narrow laundry room door. anyway, to my horror I found enough dog hair to knit another dog along with lint, crumbled foam, cloth fibers, thread, stuffed animal fillings and real weird things in the squirrel cage, air path tunnels and heating element to warrant the warning at the bottom of this posting.
oh, did I mention the free coins and paper money that fell to the bottom of the dryer?
another thing I began to notice at night was sparks or burning things ejecting from neighbors dryer vents like fireplace chimneys. I strongly suggest you ask a local fireman about laundry room fires and how to prevent them. you might learn something real important like never run your dryer when you go to sleep or when you leave your home.
WARNING:
1... the lint trap is only a starting point and not the only place to find stuff in your dryer. 2... if you don't already have one, get a metal exhaust hose and outlet pipe on your house. 3... keep flammable things away from the laundry exhaust port outside. dead brush and yard straw burn easily
If there is a paint smell coming from the dryer, I believe that a belt is slipping [giving a burning/rubber/paint type smell] and this could cause a fire. This also happens [the smell] with a very new appliance - just the 'newness' and the paint on the dryer getting warm for the first few times. If this is not a new dryer and you have not burnt/melted anything in the dryer [rubber/elastic on clothes] then I would have it serviced [by a different serviceman], immediately. Never leave the house while your dryer is switched on.
First, pull the dryer out from the wall. Next, disconnect the large hose from the back(vent hose). Check the hose to see if it's full of lint. If so, then there's your problem. If not, put a small load of cloths in, and run the dryer. Do you smell it now? If so, yes, call a real repairman. If not, then we can assume it has to do with the vent. Is it flexible? Metal or plastic? If you've made it this far, I'd bet it's vinyl... UL recomends you do NOT use it!! And if that was your problem you now know why!! You can get flexible aluminum vent hose for dryers at most(not all) hardware stores. Cut it long enough to allow you to put it on, but no longer than necessary. And make sure you do not kink it when you put the dryer back in place.
Hope this helps.
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