Things That Could Damage Your Dryer

Introduction

Dryers are one of the most important household appliances and it brings your laundry routine to a halt when it stops working. Fortunately, you can search for “dryer repair near me” and hire professionals to fix it for you. However, to keep your dryer from breaking down, you need to make sure that you don’t throw in what doesn’t belong in there. Let’s check out a few things that coil damage your dryer.

The Discussion

1. Lint – Lint is the mixture of dirt, dust, worn-out fabric fibers, and a lot of other things that get created and accumulated in the dry and hot environment inside the dryer. That’s why there’s a lint trap inside the dryer to keep most of it outside the sensitive components of your dryer. However, if the lint trap is left on its own for a long time, some of the lint may make its way into the dryer. Moreover, accumulating lint is a great safety hazard inside a hot dryer.

Lint is highly flammable and that’s why it’s often used as fire starters by hunters and campers. If there’s a spark or a point that gets excessively hot inside the dryer, it may be enough to make the lint catch on fire. When that happens, dryer damage is going to be the least of your worries, since it may cause an explosion if you have a gas dryer. That kind of accident can destroy your dryer, burn down your home, and cause loss of life.

2. Pet hair – Pet hair is another thing that can severely damage your dryer if it makes its way inside your dryer. If you have furry friends in your home, it’s highly likely that most clothes in your home have a lot of pet hair on them. You need to make sure that you brush off pet hair from your clothes before you put them inside your washer. That’s because if pet hair goes inside the washer and gets wet, it’s very difficult to separate it once it comes out of the washer. Then you’ll be forced to put that inside the dryer.

Check clothes that come out of your washer and make sure that you don’t throw them with pet hair clinging to them inside the dryer. If that’s the case, line dry your clothes instead of throwing them inside the dryer. After your clothes get dry, you can brush off pet hair from them. Pet hair shouldn’t be taken lightly since they attract a lot of static and can cause a fire when extremely dry. They can also get into the dryer and damage its sensitive components.

3. Sand – Sitting down by the beach on the warm sand and basking in the sun is a fun and relaxing activity. However, it’s a nuisance when it gets inside the crevices of your beach wear, sticks to your skin, and gets into the towel. While those are mere inconveniences, sand can wreak havoc if it gets inside the dryer. Sand is basically made of millions of tiny rocks. When they tumble inside the dryer drum, they stroke against the drum, put scratches on it, and do heavy surface damage.

Moreover, sand can also get into the tiny gaps of the dryer drum and bearings and wear it down very quickly. That’s why you should handle clothes very carefully when you’re washing and drying beach wear and towels. Tiny sand particles do the most harm to the mechanical components of your dryer if it gets in.

4. Gum – While sand is a mere inconvenience for most people, everyone’s aware of the horrifying effects of gum on hair. You have a few options to get rid of gum hair from your hair. If peanut butter and oil don’t work, you are forced to cut your hair. However, the effects of gum inside the dryer are far more menacing. If you forget to check the pockets of your clothes and gum ends up inside the dryer, it can stick to the dryer drum and get into other parts of the dryer. It can also ruin that batch of clothes.

If the temperature in the dryer is too high, the gum can permanently get baked onto the wall of the dryer drum and make it useless. Changing the dryer drum is very costly. The gum can also get into other parts of the dryer and do irreversible damage. That’s why you should always check the pockets of your clothes so that you don’t accidentally throw the gum inside the dryer. If you have a fabric with gum stuck to it make sure to get it to a professional dry cleaner.

5. Suede and other fabrics with heavy plastic use – Suede and certain other materials are made from plastic. While they are washable and can be thrown inside the washer, they should never be put inside the dryer. Extreme heat from the dryer can melt away plastic and completely destroy the fabric and get stuck to the interior components of the dryer. Instead, make sure that you line dry or air-dry items made of suede and other plastic-heavy materials.

6. Embellished Items – If you have clothes, bags, or other items with stones, sequins, gems, and other such materials embellished on them, make sure to keep them away from the dryer. Those hard gems and stones become abrasive materials when they are thrown around inside the dryer drum. They can do serious damage to dryer walls and when they get hot enough, they can also get loose from the fabric and become projectiles inside the dryer. The damage would be so severe that you would be forced to buy a new dryer.

Conclusion

When you keep the above-mentioned items out of your dryer, they can’t make their way into the sensitive components and damage your dryer. You should also do regular maintenance on your dryer to keep it in good shape. You can always search for “dryer repair near me” and hire professionals to fix your dryer when it breaks down.