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I’ve written about how to clean your washing machine but what about your dryer?
Odds are you use your dryer pretty often. Some of you may use it every day. All that use can make for a dirty dryer and what’s worse is that a dryer can become quite the fire hazard if not kept clean.
Therefore, today we are going to get dirty. We are going to clean the dryer. Even big appliances need a good scrubbing once in awhile.
How to Clean Your Dryer
Items Needed:
Vacuum with hose attachment
Coil brush (if possible, or you can use a large dust stick, stick with towel attached, etc)
Scrub brush with soap
Rag
All-Purpose Cleaner
First, unplug your dryer and turn off the gas if you have a gas dryer.
1 – Remove your lint trap, scrape out any large pieces of lint, and then head to the sink. Give the lint trap a good scrubbing with soap and a scrub brush. It might not seem like it but it’s dirty. You should be able to have water run through the screen.
2 – Use a coil brush or your make-shift tool and run it along the inside of the lint trap. Finish up with using a vacuum hose attachment to suck up any loose pieces of lint.
You can insert the lint trap back in now.
Note: This works for top lint trap dryers. If your lint trap is located inside the door of your dryer then you have to do a bit more work.
After step 1, you will want to take off at least the bottom front panel (although often times you need to remove the top panel and then the front panel) – I recommend doing a google search for your particular dryer as that will help you figure out the easiest way to clean the dryer.
Now for the back of the dryer. Are you ready? Odds are it’s pretty disgusting back there! Pull the dryer away from the wall.
1 – Detach the exhaust tube from both the wall and the dryer. Some exhaust tubes are removed with a simple pinch prongs but others need a screw driver. I needed to use a screw driver for mine. Give this tube a good clean with your vacuum hose. Make sure to clean the dryer and wall ports while you are at it.
2 – Vacuum or wipe down the back of your dryer. It’s probably dirty too!
3 – Clean the floor, walls, baseboards. It will be gross but it’s good to be thorough.
After this you can reattach the exhaust tube and carefully push your dryer back into place.
All that you need to do after this is wipe down the top and sides of the dryer and plug it back in. You now have a nice clean dryer.
Note: For those of you with a lint trap located on the inside of your dryer, things may be a bit different for you but it should be rather similar to cleaning a dryer with a lint trap on the top.
Note: Some say to remove the tops and front panels of dryers to clean out any lint that is around the drum. I found that it wasn’t necessary for me to do this as I had no lint around that area. However, if your dryer is extra dirty, you might want to investigate.
