Dryer Vents - Clean Them or Fire

[Julie Marquez]

It was a great rental house in a pleasant neighborhood. It was a perfect 3/2 built in the early 90s with those solid oak cabinets, and enough well cared maintenance to make it one of those smooth rental houses. The tenants of 10 years moved away, and the new tenants with just one month under their belt brought in their own dryer and a dryer vent fire started. Electrical and plumbing burned, structural floor joists cut away. Now it's a full gut job.

And a gut punch. So I brought out the professionals and had 17 other units get their dryer vents cleaned. 40 years of lint billowing out of those long 4" ducts (why are none of the dryers on an outside wall in these 1980/90s units?!?) Regularly $250 a cleaning, we got bulk pricing for $150 each. At this point, it's peace of mind and something to remember to do more regularly (they recommended every two years) as we maintain our rentals.

We don't have a lot of answers, just questions. Was the fire the tenant's fault because they brought in their own dryer (which is not on site anymore, we never saw it)? Is it our fault and our ducts? I'm not looking to blame, just trying to access the situation and how we can do better. Should we provide dryers (and washers) so that there is no error in a tenant provided appliance? Anyone else have a dryer vent fire, I hear they are pretty common? Anyone performing dryer vent cleaning regularly on their rentals, and best practices on that?

Maybe you need to hear this today: take a closer look at those linty dryer vents.