We bought a house, yay!…read more
We bought a fancy new clothes dryer for the house, yay! And even sprung for delivery and installation, double-yay!
Installer took a good look at the 3.5" ABS venting pipe hook-up and said "this isn't standard, you might have some trouble". Then, hooked up the dryer. The dryer complained about poor venting, but still ran. And then I noticed that we needed to leave 6" inches of space behind the dryer, for the dryer hose. And I could only open the dryer door halfway. And that there was an obscene amount of lint in the output vent. Boo, double-boo, and triple-boo.
OK, I can take a hint -- the dryer vent needed to be looked at / probably at least partially replaced. Not a huge job, but also not something I wanted to leave to generic handyman or duct cleaning service. I reached out to a few HVAC/ducting folks; IAT returned my email promptly (crickets from everyone else, maybe too small a job?).
Andy came out on a Sunday (wow!), and I walked through what I knew. He then took a good look at both ends of the vent, and pointed out that the exit vent actually seemed to be flexible aluminum hose, further causing issues with lint getting trapped. A day or so later, he provided me with a quote for the job (very reasonable!), which included a full dryer vent replacement and adding a dryer box, so that I'd be able to reclaim some of the space behind the dryer. I accepted the quote, and his team was out a couple weeks later to take care of the job.
As other have mentioned, drop cloths, booties, and masks were the norm. They did a great job cleaning up after themselves, and even ran the vacuum while cutting into the drywall, to minimize dust. As it turns out, there was a kinda tricky turn -- probably why the previous installers went with flexible tube -- but the team creatively constructed the appropriate turns with the rigid ducting, and did the full replacement (see the "after" pics). The dryer is no longer complaining, and it's now within an inch or two of the back wall, thanks to the dryer box.
Overall, I'm very happy with their work, and if I even need AC installed, I know who my first call will be.