LINT: After hearing about a local clothes dryer fire a few days ago, Andy Heffner of Ormsby said he wanted to remind people to get their dryers cleaned regularly.

“Do you realize we get a lot of lint build-up in this dryer?” he wondered.

Dryers do collect a lot of lint, and not just in the easy-to-reach lint traps that need cleaned out with every use.

Andy recalls a repairman cleaning out his dryer a few years ago after he was called to fix a broken heater unit. According to Andy, the repairman found the chimney of the dryer was “packed with lint,” among other odd things that collected over time such as crayons from the kids and banana chips, of all things. “I couldn’t believe the amount of lint in that area.”

Now, Andy has Mr. Appleby of Port Allegany, a fixer of home appliances, come every year to clean out the lint.

Andy shared other advice from Mr. Appleby to prevent loss or tragedy due to dryer fires.

“Never leave your house and leave your dryer running,” he said. He remembers it was about a week after he learned the tip that he heard of a local woman who left her dryer running while she took her children on a trip to Walmart, only to have the dryer catch on fire.

At least in that scenario nobody was home to be hurt.

Andy also warns people not to go to bed with the dryer running, which can be more dangerous if a fire starts and its occupants are asleep. “I’m guilty of it. I’ve never thought about it,” he noted.

In between professional cleanings, Andy cleans out the floor vent his dryer is connected to with a stick. He said he’d take his dryer apart to clean it himself, but he doesn’t think he could figure out how to get it back together correctly.

There is a cost to have someone else clean it, but it’s “cheap maintenance” compared to how much it would cost to replace the dryer — or to fix fire damage.

Andy warns, too, that electric dryers are “just as prone as gas” to catch on fire, as both make heat.

Happy cleaning!