Laundry rooms
Dryer vents cleared of lint, machine to exterior cap
Lint cleared from shared laundry rooms in apartments, condos, hotels, gyms, clinics and assisted living.
How to tell the vent run is packed with lint
A commercial dryer moves a lot of hot, damp air through a vent run that is mostly out of sight, behind the machines, above the ceiling and out through the exterior wall or roof. Lint rides that air, and wherever the run bends, narrows or meets a seam, some of it stays behind. Over months it builds into a blockage.
The machines tell you before anyone opens the duct. Loads take longer to dry. A cycle shuts off partway through. The outside of a unit runs hot to the touch. The laundry room smells musty or burnt. Lint turns up at the vent cap outside.
Hot, damp air that cannot leave the building efficiently stays in the machine and the room, which is what you feel as heat and smell as odor. Any one of these is a reason to look at the vent run. In a building with shared laundry, the signs often show up first as complaints from residents or guests, long before anyone on the maintenance side hears a thing.
Commercial laundry room with galvanized dryer exhaust ducts rising to a ceiling vent run, one access panel open on packed lint
Shared laundry rooms are where the lint adds up
The buildings that call us have one thing in common: a lot of dryers, running a lot of hours, for people who are not the ones maintaining them. That includes property managers with shared laundry rooms, apartment complexes and condos, fitness centers and gyms, and hotels, motels and extended-stay properties.
It also includes medical clinics and assisted living facilities, schools, and industrial workspaces. Each of them runs dryers on a different rhythm, and each has a laundry room that matters to the people inside the building. A vent that is clear on a Monday can be loaded again by the end of a busy season, which is why a property with shared machines is better served by a regular cleaning than by a one-time fix.
Metro Cleaning Service, Inc. handles these vents as part of its wider ventilation work. If the same building has a commercial kitchen, that exhaust run is covered under kitchen exhaust and hood cleaning, and the building's air ducts fall under commercial air duct cleaning.
Cleaned from the machine to the exterior cap
The job covers the whole vent run, not only the part nearest the dryer. We clear the lint from the connection at the machine, along the duct and every bend, out to the cap on the exterior, so that the air has a clear path out of the building again. Where an access panel is open on packed lint, the difference after cleaning is plain to see: bare galvanized metal and a vent that moves air.
A laundry room is not a space you can shut down for a day, so we plan the work around when the machines are in use and when they are not. For an apartment building that means a window the residents are not using the room; for a hotel or a gym, it means planning around how the property actually runs.
Metro Cleaning Service, Inc. is licensed, bonded and insured, based in Saint Paul, and has served the Twin Cities for over 50 years. We serve Minneapolis and Bloomington as well as the St. Paul side, and every quote is free and priced for your building.
Metro Cleaning Service, Inc. Licensed, bonded and insured, since 1968. Call (651) 484-9799.
A short checklist for your laundry room
If you recognize the signs on the left and manage a building on the right, the vent run is worth a look. The same crew also does kitchen exhaust cleaning and commercial air duct cleaning, so one call can cover the building.
WARNING SIGNS
- Longer dry times
- Cycles that shut off mid-load
- A hot exterior on the unit
- A musty or burnt smell
- Lint at the vent cap
WHO WE CLEAN FOR
- Property managers with shared laundry rooms
- Apartment complexes and condos
- Fitness centers and gyms
- Hotels, motels and extended-stay properties
- Medical clinics and assisted living
- Schools and industrial workspaces