Uxbridge Information & Events

 

You always hear the stories about houses burning down from Christmas tree lights, or clothes dryers, but you always think that it won't happen to you. I thought that until today.

Just like every other time I do laundry, I load up the washer put in a load and leave. When it's done I move it to the dryer and again, I leave to do other stuff. Sometimes I even leave the house with the dryer running. I'm sure most of you do this also.

there are an estimated annual 15,500 fires, 10 deaths and 10 injuries due to clothes dryer fires

Today, I started the dryer with a load of wet clothes, and went on my way to do other chores. I happen to walk by the dryer area and smelled a burning odor. I have never smelled this before, but I knew something was wrong right away and had a suspicion it was the dryer.

We have a side loading washer and dryer which means there is a horizontal surface on the top of them that we can put clothes and cleaning products. At this time we had a couple towels on the top. I moved the towels to get a closer look. Trying to look behind the dryer I put my hands on the top of it and got burned.

The top was not slightly hot, or hot to the touch, it was "Holy #&*@" this thing is going to melt.

I turned it off, let it cool and then unplugged it. I Googled "top of dryer hot" and found a lot of results about this topic. clogged vent, faulty electrical were the top two reasons.

I plugged it back it and started it. This time I was feeling the top to see how fast it got hot. Amazingly, within a minute it was too hot to touch!

I thought for sure this was an electrical problem. No way a clogged vent will cause the dryer to get this hot, that is ridiculous. For sure the dryer would have some sort of shutoff if the vent was clogged and the dryer was over heating.

Since I can't fix an electrical problem, I checked the vent first. I found it was a clog, in the vent inside our walls. Unfortunately the vent is really long and has a few 90 degree bends, so i can't unclog it. Time to call a plumber.

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Now I'm Freakin Mad!

It's 2010. My dryer is 2 years old and due to a simple clog in the vent, I was probably 5-10 minutes away from a fire in my home. My life, my wife's life, and my baby's life were all at risk.

I think it's really ironic that there are sensors in the dryer that know when the clothes are dry, yet, there are no sensors to tell when the vent is clogged, or that the dryer is overheating???

Any inventors out there... Solve this problem and you will stop 15,000 fires a year!

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Funny thing is, I have had a house of mine catch on fire...

But I bet you can't guess what caused it? Take a guess in the comment section.

The person that makes the right guess wins the satisfaction of being Captain Awesome for a day!

Like my friend to the left ;)