I had a dryer vent installed through the roof. Over a year ago. It stopped drying efficiently and I had my roofing guy come out to clean the roof vent.

He showed me a screen that was covered in lint. He also showed me a NIB roof vent. The NIB roof vent could be used either as a dryer vent or a bathroom vent. But on the bottom of the NIB vent was the notice: "Note: if used as a dryer vent, remove the screen."

Now it just has the flapper.

He told me the original installers were supposed to remove the screen. That's what the note indicated as well.

I asked about birds nesting. He said smaller birds could try (it's a pretty steep slope) but that if I were to use the dryer at least once a week, they wouldn't try.

What do you think? About all the above?

I would say definitely get that screen out, or it will continue to catch lint. I like his idea of normal use of the dryer to keep the birds out. In fact, I'd guess you'd use it more than once a week.

You could mount one of those fake owls on the hood of the exterior vent to keep birds n squirrels out...

Take out the screen and don’t worry about birds. Have the same style in my house, no birds.

My retired OCD engineer neighbor takes his dryer loose annually and runs the electric leaf blower thru the vent on the floor level and sends his teen up to remove any lint trapped or hung up on the roof “turtle”.

I get little lint balls that have rolled off the roof from the vent-so I guess there’s lint in there, but I have a gas powered backpack blower-maybe I should use the wet/dry vac and reverse the hose.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
You could mount one of those fake owls on the hood of the exterior vent to keep birds n squirrels out...

Thanks guys. You're the best.

I bought one of those high efficiency dryers when we bought our mountain home. After about a week it started flashing a notice that the flow rate wasn’t enough.

I ended up buying one of these and it worked great. You wouldn’t believe how much lint etc. came out of there. I now use it once a year to keep everything running smoothly. As a side note, clogged up dryers are a significant cause of house fires…
https://www.amazon.com/Smart-H...TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1

I have a dryer vent brush. The "handle" is too short and won't go around a 90° bend. I tie a long string to a plastic shopping bag and blow the bag out from inside with my leaf blower. Then tie the brush to the string and pull it back and forth several times. Finish off with the leaf blower to remove any leftovers.

When I lived in Vegas we had a roof vent for the dryer that had a 1/4 inch square screen in it. After a couple of rounds of it clogging up I just removed it.
Absolutely zero issues after that. Never had an issue with birds or insects trying to come down the exhaust tube.

I don't think Lemmy knew shit about plumbing, but that mf'er could sure play a bass.

quote:

Originally posted by 6guns:
I'd guess you'd use it more than once a week.

Yeah, generally ~5 days a week. Sometimes more than once daily. Thanks for the response.