Dryer Vent Maintenance in San Antonio, TX

What actually makes a dryer vent fail here

Most failures start at the termination, not the drum. Walk outside mid-load and watch the hood. A flap that stays shut means backpressure. Pull the hood cover if you can. Lint packs behind louvers in a gray mat. Builders often install pest screens inside those hoods. Screens belong on bath fans, never on dryers. We cut them out on nearly every first visit.

Housing stock decides the rest. Postwar ranches on raised foundations vent straight through a stud bay. Those runs are short and forgiving. Newer two-story builds stack laundry upstairs and terminate at a roof jack. That run turns twice, climbs, and relies on gravity flappers birds nest under. Wasps build in them through late summer.

Foil flex behind the appliance is its own problem. Push a dryer back against a closet wall and the elbow collapses. Nothing downstream matters after that. A recessed dryer box and rigid pipe fixes it for good.

Signs worth acting on: hot damp laundry air, a scorched-lint odor, insulation dust on top of the dryer. Attic joints separate quietly and feed lint into blown insulation. That one is a fire concern, not a laundry complaint. Call before the next load.