Laundry Vent Extension

Dryer vents? An installation everyone should be familiar with? I guess. I’ve had to make adjustments to the one in my house twice already. The first DIY dryer vent update I did involved removing the slinky-esque vent and replacing it with a rigid, pieced together vent (per my inspector, it’s safer for gas dryers to have the rigid kind). Back when I did it that first time, I measured the distance from my dryer to the window, and then purchased about $15 worth of custom pieces (elbows and straighter 6″ metal tube pieces) to make a secure connection from the dryer to the window vent.

This time (as in, last night – because I had a lot of laundry to do) I had to work on updating that same metal vent, because when the glass block was installed in the basement (I wrote about that here), the vent from the dryer needed to be temporarily removed. When I went to reinstall, come to find that the vent on the window is about 5″ higher than the old vent was, so I couldn’t correctly hook up the dryer until I made some adjustments. The solution? Bought a new piece of the 6″ piping. After disconnecting the existing vent, I attached one piece to the top where the air releases through the window, and the other part to the base of the dryer – it helped me to understand how the elbows on the end needed to be configured, and what gap needed to be filled by the new piping.

Once I knew what length piece I needed to cut, it was easy. I trimmed the (still flat) vent pipe, double checked that it was just about the right length (I knew I had a little bit of wiggle room) and then cinched the pipe together (the edges come pre-bent, so you just wedge the edges together to lock).

The final step was taping securely around the new breaks in the tube with this special metal adhesive, ensuring that as much air would travel through the pipe and properly ventilate out the window as possible. (Also taped the top of the pipe to the new window vent opening.)