Gardus RLE202 LintEater 10-Piece Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning System
by Gardus
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List Price: Our Price: $23.18 You Save: $8.77 (27%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: Tools See more product details |
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Tools and Hardware Reviews of Gardus RLE202 LintEater 10-Piece Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning System
Customer Review: wow
Summary: 5 Stars
1. clean vent cover underneath (mine was a metal 2port screw-in type on the roof. underneath was like a lint helmet. i was worried about the screws, that the brush would get caught in them from the other end; it didn't). put brush and extension in hole first, then put other end into the plastic port for vacuum and extension.
2. use variable speed drill, if you have one (you can pay attention to the drill's speed, and move backward, then forward, if it slows down due to lint resistance).
3. pay attention to the sound/vibration of the vacuum for lint obstruction amount. the hose can hang, if it's too small diameter... just keep it away from the wall for more suction power (also you can wrap hand around port in between cleaning, for more suction).
4. the brush will move backward and forward in the pipe, with little pressure while drilling.
5. i used electrical tape on each joint as the drill reached the port. the tape would catch on the lip of the wall when i was exiting, but i would just take off the plastic port and move the extention a little with my hand as i was drilling, then replace the port.
6. i used 2 pliars to tighten joints (just turn only the new joint so not reversing direction). to avoid reversing drill direction, never put the drill in reverse for anything. always remove the auger from the pipe with the drill in forward direction (refer to #4). remove extension from drill before unscrewing (with pliars) from other extention.
7. i knew i hit the end, when the new extension kind of twisted and wouldn't really go forward. (i had to buy the extension kit, using 6 poles altogether).
8. you'll know it worked if your dryer area doesn't get humid, the dryer stays normal temp for a dryer, and your clothes take less time to dry (mine takes about 35 mins now). ps, my other dryer was old, and i thought it was burning wires cause it was old, but now it may have been because the vent was blocked, so it was overheating.
Customer Review: A Useful if Somewhat Flawed Laundry Dryer Duct Cleaner.
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a useful, if flawed, laundry dryer vent cleaning package, though it may be worthwhile if you have a long, complicated duct. The main cleaning unit is a set of four 36" flexible plastic rods and two brushes. The rods have metal threaded mounts allowing the rods to screw together and for the attachment of one of the brushes. After detaching the duct from the dryer the rods with brush are attached to a drill and run through the entire duct and outside vent. Unfortunately the rod has a tendency to pop out of the drill. The metal caps on the rods appear too thick to be securely held by the drill. I used a 3/8" cordless 18 volt drill with the torque reduced. Gardus should provide a "reducer" that would attach to one of the rods to improve the fit with the drill. On the positive side, the items are reasonably well made, with detailed instruction on both paper and DVD. One of the brushes can be used to clean out the lint trap vent, though I didn't find it that effective.
If you have a short, simple laundry dryer duct, you may have somewhat cheaper alternatives to the Gardus. If your duct is made from foil or vinyl, they are not considered safe, and so not worth cleaning. You need to replace them with a stiff or flexible sheet metal duct, the former preferred. If you already have a flexible sheet metal duct of less than eight feet, a replacement duct with pressure clamps is only about $10. With a short metal duct you can use a leaf blower to clean the detached duct, though some lint residue may still adhere to the duct's inner wall. Make sure the vent between the wall and the outside is also clean. Before detaching the duct from the dryer you may also want to run the blower through the lint trap vent--after removing the screen. Finally, you should also vacuum out the duct entrance on the back of the dryer. The Gardus package includes a couple of adapters for both a shop vac and a leaf blower, but I didn't find them that useful.
Customer Review: LintEater - Excellent Product!
Summary: 5 Stars
Thank you very much for this excellent product.
We have been having problems with our dryer taking forever to dry our clothes and I discovered the vent was jam packed with lint. I attached a small cleaning brush to a "fish tape" of the sort that electricians use and managed to work it through the entire vent. When the scrubbing produced no additional lint, I hooked the dryer back up, but still no air flow. I have about 18 ft of dryer vent hidden in an inaccessible partition between two floors. I could see that about 3 ft at each end was clear via visual inspection. I naturally assumed that I had removed all the obstructions because my brush could travel freely through the vent.
Looking for any info on this problem, an internet search found this product. The web site instructional video is also excellent. Since my only other option was to run new vent or tear out the old one, it seemed worth a try. The flexible rods navigated the vent without any problem and an amazing assortment of lint, twigs, leaves, etc came flying out. Problem solved and our dryer is now running perfectly! To make it even easier to use, I fed the push rod through a two foot metal pipe. While my right hand held the drill, I held on to the metal pipe with my left and this prevented the last push rod from a tendency to twist up on itself.
This product should be sold in every hardware, plumbing and HVAC store. I especially like how thorough the kit is - complete with useful extra fittings and DVD.
Modern dryers will turn off or kill the flame when air flow is impeded. Older models will just continue to run at max temperature - creating a fire hazard. So you might have someone return a dryer as malfunctioning when it is simply a lint blockage.
All in all an elegantly simple and 100% effective product.
Customer Review: Easy to Use Vent Cleaning System
Summary: 4 Stars
We've been in our house 8 years now, and I never knew you were supposed to clean out your dryer vents. Our dryer was starting to leave clothes damp, and after some internet searches I decided that clogged vents were most likely the culprit. Enter the Gardus Linteater system. I just got finished with my first cleaning about half an hour ago. The system is very easy to use. A brush mounted on flexible extensions is fed into the duct either from inside or outside the house while at the same time the duct is being blown or vacuumed clean. The Gardus system is easy to use and well made at a reasonable price.
After my experience I have a couple of words of wisdom. First, they recommend adding tape to the brush extension pieces, which I think is completely overkill. I snugged them with Vice Grips and they were very difficult to get undone. Unless you run your drill the wrong direction the entire time I doubt they'll work themselves loose.
Second, I'd recommend blowing outside rather than sucking. I originally set up my shop vac to suck, and was clever and plugged it in using a remote switch I had, so I could wait until I was outside ready to go before turning it on. Things were going great for about the first minute until all my smoke alarms started going off. Somehow a fair amount of lint managed to get outside the vac and covered my entire laundry room and part of my downstairs. In retrospect I should have used the included vac attachment with the hole for the extension rod (I didn't realize it was in the box until I was finished) and done the cleaning from inside next to the vac, so I would have realized I was filling my house with lint. That was all my own fault, and not the cleaning system.
Customer Review: Well worth the money
Summary: 4 Stars
I had recently spoken to our chimney sweep about cleaning our dryer vent and he quoted us about $200.00 to come out and clean it. I saw this on [...] and decided to order it. I came to Amazon and saved about $10, plus free shipping with Prime. I also bought the extension kit because our run is very long GARDUS INC #R-3203612 12' Dry Vent Extention Kit. Anyway, we cleaned out the vent today and I can't believe all the gunk that was in there. I don't think it had been cleaned since the house was built over 20 yrs ago!!! There were a few issues, such as the shop-vac adapter was too big (diameter too wide) to fit on the standard shop-vac hose, so I had to rig up something with a tube from my blower combined with my shop vac to get it to have the proper dimensions. Other than that though, it worked as advertised. It was easy to connect each extension when I needed it, and it went through like a trooper. My gunk must have gotten wet at one time, because when the brush got to the inside, it just stopped. I ended up taking off the dryer hose where it was connected to the house vent, and all the gunk had gotten stuck there (It was hard-packed). Just pulled it out and voila!!! You can actually see the air coming out of the vent now, where before, you could barely feel it coming out. I think it was well worth the money as it saved me over $[...] of having a pro do it, and I can use the tool a couple times a year to keep it clean with no added expense. Hopefully it will be even easier next time because it will not be so clogged with lint.
Very satisfied with the product.