Narrator: Some areas around
the house are easy to clean, but it's often the out-of-sight
jobs that are the hardest. One of the most challenging aspects of deep cleaning these spaces is the buildup of grime over time. Air vents that haven't
been cleaned in roughly half a century require
special tools, for example, and a roof that's covered in
nearly three decades of moss calls for a skilled technician. Neglecting these spaces
can have consequences. The accumulation of debris
in these hard-to-reac
h areas can cause structural damage, spark fires, or even induce health hazards. Watch as eight specialists
share expert tips of the trade and explain what it takes to deep clean decades of household grime. Duct Heroes is an air-duct-cleaning
company in Illinois. Many of its clients have never done a single air-duct cleaning, and today's job is no exception. These vents haven't been cleared of dust and debris for a century. Ahmad: As soon as we walked
in, we see the old vents, the furnace, how o
ld it was. Before even opening any of the vents up, I knew how bad it was going to be. You know, he said 47 years of dust; probably over 100 years, to be honest. If you look at a vent and you see dust on the actual vent, that's a clear sign that the ducts have
probably never been cleaned and they're pretty filthy inside. We like to start on the
very top of the house and work our way down. That tool that we're
using, we call it whiskers. The whiskers are just made out of rubber. The end of it's a
ttached
to an air compressor, and you have air just
coming out through the rod out the little whisker things. So, what you're looking at right now is just me pulling chunks of dust out that have probably been in
there for over 100 years. There was too much dust to
be putting it in the vacuum, so I literally went in there with my hands and grabbed probably 5 pounds of dust. Isn't it gnarly? Look at
how much dust that is. It's just so sick, honestly. This is the back of the dryer, and you guys can
pretty much see there's an endless amount
of lint coming out. There's a few reasons why you should get your
dryer vent cleaned. It's a huge fire hazard, and your clothes will
dry more efficiently. It's well worth the money to just pay to get it cleaned every year. The vacuum is on throughout
the whole process, and what we're doing is
blowing all that dust and debris closer and
closer to the vacuum. This house in particular had 18 vents. Most of the time, I think, probably 75% of the time, the h
ouses that we go to
have never been cleaned. People just don't think about it. Getting your air ducts cleaned isn't a regular thought that comes to your head. The dust you typically
see in your vents is, most of it is actually human skin cells. Yeah, it's pretty gnarly. So, right now we're done, and everything's pretty much good to go. You're pretty much going to see a brand-new home, honestly. You're going to feel much better. Your health is going to be better. I actually got a phone
call after
that job, and they said all their
allergies went away. It's just a huge health benefit, honestly. You might not notice the small stuff, but your body does. Narrator: Moving underground,
there are the sewage pipes, which after heavy use are in need of significant cleaning and repairs. Instead of digging underground or having to do any demolition to replace or clean sewage pipes, Kenneth Kaas cures them from the inside. He's a plumber from Norway who
specializes in pipe relining. This blue tube y
ou're
seeing is being pushed through a faulty sewage
pipe using pressurized air, which will create a tough new
pipe inside of the old one. This technique can be used to fix cracked, leaky, or old pipes. Some signs that a pipe needs
to be inspected include sewer odors, slow drains,
and constant clogs. Pipe relining is a quicker
method compared to replacements, and it only takes two
workers to complete the job. Workers start by inspecting
the inside of the pipe with a tiny camera. They're looking
for any cracks or leaks. Once they assess the damage, they'll clean the pipe with
water and a rotating chain. This breaks up any caked-on
rust, dirt, hair, sewage, and oil inside the pipe. All this buildup shrank
the size of the pipe, making it difficult for
waste to flow through it. Now that all that waste has been removed, the pipe is back to its original size, which will allow the new lining to stick. Now the relining process begins. The workers measure the pipe and cut a piece of felt lining
to roughly the same size. A vacuum pump sucks out any
air from inside the felt so that it can be filled with epoxy resin. They mix the resin by hand. Now that there's no room for air bubbles, which weaken the resin, they fill it up. Epoxy resin is superstrong
and resistant to chemicals. It's also a good choice
to prevent roots of trees or plants from getting in
the pipes and clogging them. And since resin starts as a liquid, it can be used to repair
pipes of any size. The team flattens the lini
ng
and puts it in a compressor. The compressor uses pressurized air to shoot the lining into the old pipe. Once it's in there, the lining is inflated so that it sticks to the walls. A new pipe starts to
form inside the old one. It cures and hardens for four hours. With the help of pressurized
air and heat from a steamer. Then the lining is deflated, trimmed, and removed, leaving behind a new pipe inside. The pipes can be used as
normal once the job is done, and no water will be able
to get in be
tween the liner and the original pipe. The finished product
can last over 50 years, which is twice as long
as a brand-new PVC pipe. Gutters are some of the
most important things to keep clean, especially before winter. I'm Broden, and I own a
business in Connecticut called The Gutter Guyz. Today I'm going to show
you how to clean gutters with wet and dry debris. So, when we clean a
gutter with wet debris, nine times out of 10, we
want to clean it by hand. The reason why is when it's
wet, it typi
cally is very muddy and there's a lot of what
we call shingle dust, or grit, in the gutters,
and it's literally a mud. And when we blow them when they're wet, it makes a muddy mess all over the house. We want to clean them
by hand for that reason. So, that is a gutter that is
completely jammed with leaves and debris, and the downspout
was completely covered. When we released the
debris out of the downspout and got that gutter cleaned,
all of that rainwater that was in the gutter just
started to
flow very heavily right down the downspout, as it should. So, oftentimes when we
do a gutter cleaning, not only do we find leaves,
but we find plants so big that we actually call
them trees, sometimes, growing right out of a gutter. We're actually pulling out a big plant, and you can see the whole root system come right out with it. Certain types of trees give
off these little things that come off the tree and
will grow another tree. And when those land in the gutter, it's a perfect environment
for that to grow. It's a classic sign that your gutters have
not been cleaned in years. It also puts a significant
amount of weight from the whole root system
growing in the gutter on the gutter, which in turn will pull that gutter off of the fascia board, which is actually the
board behind the gutter that the gutter is mounted to. Wet debris is usually
just saturated with water. Water will overflow at the
gutter and get into your basement and create cracks in your foundation. Once water does fi
nd its
way into your basement, it wreaks havoc. Here, the water that's
flowing out of the downspout at the bottom is the end
result that we are looking for. So that water will flow down
and out, as it properly should. When we see dry debris, the
reason why that debris is dry is because there has not been any rain in the past, I would say, week or so. So, when we clean a gutter
that has dry debris, oftentimes we will use a hand blower and blow those gutters out because it does a really good job o
f just getting everything
out of the gutter, whether it be leaves or sticks or curly stuff that
comes off in the spring. Depending on the pitch of the roof, we will get on that roof,
start our hand blower, and walk across that roofline hand-blowing out all of the
debris out of that gutter. Sometimes the debris is
very compact and it's thick. That's a classic sign of
maybe a couple of years that somebody had not had
their gutters cleaned. We stick to one type of ladder, and that's an aluminum lad
der. The aluminum ladder does
conduct electricity, so it's very important we
stay away from power lines when we are moving aluminum ladders. We could get severely electrocuted. But certainly deadly, which is why we mark the
power-line areas with flags before we start a gutter cleaning, because you're looking
where you're walking, so you don't look up
to see the power lines. So it's very important
for us to have a reminder that the power lines are there. We will often drop a
penny down the downsp
out just to know that that
downspout's free and clear because we can see and hear
it go all the way through and back out at the bottom, and we know that we're in good shape. The best advice I can give a homeowner is to be proactive and not reactive. Typically, when you're
reactive, it's too late. Damage has been done, the water may already be in your basement, it may already be in your home, and it's just not a good
way to maintain your house. Water is seriously
detrimental to your house, and th
e main cause of
water is from your gutters. So if you keep the gutters free and clear and you do consistent
cleaning, whether it be two or three times per year,
which we recommend, you will never have any issues
with water in your basement or ruining your flower beds
or rotting out the fascia and soffits of your home. Just stay on top of gutter cleaning. Narrator: Perhaps even worse than a clogged gutter full of leaves is a pool that hasn't been
cleaned for six years. Watch as Miles Laflin clean
s out one of the dirtiest pools he's ever seen. Miles: All right, then.
I had a DM come through. Can I help sort out this pool? Which actually looks
more like a pond, I know. I was half expecting to see a fish swimming
around in the bottom. There was plants growing
in there, like pond plants. They thought maybe when
they were cutting the grass and they had the doors open,
maybe little bits blew in and seeds or whatever
just went into the water and bits started growing and stuff. So maybe like th
at. But who knows? We're going to empty it and clean it out. Drop in the submersible pump first, and we'll be back the next day. Nice and empty, but not nice and clean. Time to get to work. I'm going to jump in and have
a look at the damage first. Yeah, so once the pool was empty, we brushed them in into a
corner with a big brush, shoveled them out into a bucket, and threw it on their compost heap. The main difference
between cleaning an indoor and an outdoor pool is
normally you don't get any s
ort of debris in a indoor pool. Obviously this one had
plants growing in it. Took about five or six years for this pool to get like that. But for an outdoor pool, that would probably
only take maybe a year, year and a half for it
to get like that state. So, before we emptied the pool,
this was actually floating, so when we emptied it, it sort of, like, the plants had started attaching
themselves to the wall. Then jet-washing the walls and the floor. Quickly have a guess at what picture's tiled i
n on the floor. I went for a dolphin.
Turns out it's a sea lion. That's pretty cool, though. It's coming up nicely, but there's still some stains left over. So what we're going to
do is mix up some acid in a bucket of water, scrub that all over the floor and walls, then we're going to jet wash the surround, jump back in the pool, rinse that down, get the big Hoover out, start Hoovering up all
the last little bits. So, that is a chlorine dispenser, and you can fill that up
with the chlorine table
ts, and it slowly dissolves the tablets, feeding chlorine into the pool. You could fill up the chlorine
feeder with the tablets, but it won't give your
pool instant chlorine. You'd then put in the granules to give it that initial chlorine dose, and then the tablets will slowly dissolve, bringing up the chlorine level as well. That is, well, some people think it's
me adding color to the pool. [laughs] "Is that what
makes the pool look blue?" is what some people message me. But actually it's algae
cide, and that is to prevent
the growth of algae. So, that is a jelly cube, and it's a water clarifier. Also, it removes phosphates from the pool and helps with chemical efficiency. What it does is help put, like, a layer, pick up small particles, therefore making the pool a bit clearer. When you initially put salt in a pool, a freshly filled pool, it
will take around a week for the salt to be generated
into chlorine itself, and the process is called electrolysis. It looked as if it had just bee
n finished from, like, new build. The tiles were nice and blue, nice and white tiles, very clean looking. 100 times better than what
it did when I turned up. This was all within
maybe half a day's work. I mean, I've seen green indoor pools, but never an indoor pool
with anything growing other than a little bit of algae. Narrator: A home's
exterior is best cleaned with a good power washer. My name's Aj Joyner, owner of Advanced Pressure Washing LLC. Today I'm going to show you
how we clean the ex
terior of a client's dirty home step by step. We, in general, we
offer exterior cleaning, but the main services
in the residential field are house washing, gutter
clean-out, concrete cleaning. Those are the main-ticket
items that we solicit to the residential clients. The condition of the fence
structurally is great, but as you can see, it's
covered in mildew and algae. Wood is very particular because if you use too much pressure, you're going to cause a lot
of damage to the surface. So to treat
it, we just use the water. We actually use moderate pressure, and we make sure always
to go with the grain. This keeps us from
furring/damaging the wood. The driveway is terrible!
Covered in mildew and algae. The chemicals we normally use is called sodium hypochlorite, 12.5%, or better known as pool
shock/industrial bleach. We normally dilute that down to a 50:50 ratio in our buckets. This kills the mildew and algae, that top layer, when we pretreat. It kills that almost instantly. This is call
ed a Whisper
Wash Big Guy surface cleaner. That metal tubing actually rotates around on a swivel. That's the item that I use
to actually clean concrete. From there, we'll actually
go around washing the trim around the brick and other areas the surface cleaner couldn't reach, and then we will post-treat
with the detergent again to get any organic stains
that are left behind. After we do the driveway, we'll then do the front
patio and sidewalk. Also sometimes, if the client wants, we'll also do th
e curves along the drive. The house is in pretty good condition, but there was a few spots that we noticed that were pretty bad with
heavy, thick mildew and algae. On a house, we use roughly
about 10% sodium hypochlorite mixed with about 90% water. So, the black on the brick is actually just really thick mildew and algae. This is caused by moisture and shade, allowing for such big
mildew and algae to grow. When we wash a house's
exterior, we wash the roof, the outside, the gutters,
beside the ho
me, the windows, the doors, anything that is on the side or attached to the home itself. So, we're finished. We
finally got the job done. So, roughly this job
took us about 4 ½ hours. Everything looks amazing. The client was beyond happy
with the job that we have done. You can clearly see
everything is transformed into a new clean state. My personal suggestion, instead of trying to do it yourself, just
always hire professionals because you're dealing
with some very strong and dangerous chemicals
,
and it can become dangerous when in the hands of
someone not experienced. Narrator: Next up, Sid Partridge of Partridge Exterior Cleaning in the UK walks us through what it takes
to remove moss from a roof that hasn't been touched
in nearly three decades. Sid: Here I'm beginning
to scrape the roof, so I'm trying to remove
as much moss as possible. This is what I'll be doing
for the bulk of the day, and this is the hardest part of the job. I have the tool that I use. It's basically a flat metal
blade angled to one side, which means I can get
the edge of the tile, which usually carries a lot of the moss, and scrape the bulk surface
of the tile at the same time. I use sort of a side-to-side motion, and it is very taxing on the
body, so it takes a long time to build up the endurance
and strength to do it. So, on this roof you'll see
a lot of brown and green. This is the moss. You'll also see a lot of white spots people
think is bird droppings, but this is white lichen. Moss is terrible f
or roofing and roof materials, especially in the UK, as we get a lot of damp weather over here, so it just tends to grow and fester more, and it'll grow in between
the cracks of the tiles. Now, when you have hot weather
turn into cold weather, the moss will freeze and expand and then end up cracking the roof tiles, which can create holes, leaks, and things like that in the roof. So, this part of the job, where I'm on the
scaffolding, was the hardest. So, I used a 40-feet extendable pole with the
scraper attached on the end, and I was almost at max extension. So, the scraper itself is quite heavy, and the pole itself is quite heavy. So having that out at
a near horizontal level for a couple of hours is very difficult. And as soon as this was
done, I was relieved and happy to move on to the next part. So, what I'm cleaning here
is a four-bedroomed house. It's got big flat concrete tiles. So, these are some of the
best tiles to come across to clean the surface area of them. And because th
ey're completely flat, it's very easy to get the moss off. You do not get roofs better than this. So, it's rare that you'll
actually get away with using a broom to clean a roof, as usually the moss is
very, very stuck on, and it's typically just
used for cleaning up. However, on this job, the
moss was coming off easy. So in certain sections
it can just be easier just to try and sweep off a majority and then sort of fine-tune
it with a scraper. So, the typical cleaning chemicals that I use in my
roof-cleaning work is a chemical called a biocide. What this essentially will do is destroy any of the organic
growth left on the roof, and it has a residual cleaning
effect once I'm gone as well. So there's no rinsing it
off; you leave it on the roof to fully dry and soak into the tiles. This will get anything that
we can't get to by scraping. So anything that's left in the gaps. Any sort of really stubborn stains and marks that are left on the tiles also will slowly degrade. So, the brush that
I'm using
here is a basic water-fed pole that most window cleaners would use. That's all you need.
It's got four jets in it, which will fire out the chemical mix with the water onto the roof, and the brush is just used
to agitate that chemical, which will help it foam
up, as you can see. This helps it stick to the roof more, as it's a natural surfactant. So, what I'm doing here is I'm applying the biocide
solution to the roof. Now, this is diluted at 25:1 with water. So for every 1 liter of bio
cide,
I use 25 liters of water to dilute it, ensuring I'm
covering every square inch of this roof, making sure
it's completely soaked in. A lot of mistakes people make
is not putting enough on, and they're left with a very patchy roof. So it's really important
to get complete coverage and make sure all of the tiny little gaps are completely soaked. So if you don't fill all
of the gaps on the roof with the chemical, then the moss will regrow with a vengeance. The important part is
making sure any
thing organic on this roof is completely
absorbing this chemical. So once the biocide
completely soaks and dries in, you would never even know it was on there, and your results will start
to come after a few weeks. The main thing is
trusting in the chemical, because it definitely will do its job. So, it's important to
have your roof cleaned because the buildup of moss will over time damage the tiles on the roof, which can lead to cracks,
damp, leak, all sorts of issues in your home that you
real
ly don't want happening. And if the problem is
not treated early enough, then it can lead to very
expensive roof repairs in the future. As far as timescale on how
often should my roof be cleaned, it is pretty much a one-time
deal for the majority of the process, as long as
it's being kept on top of, and in future it would just
be a light chemical treatment just to keep anything at bay. So the first step is getting it done, and then it's a case of maintaining it. Narrator: Even the
household appl
iances we use to keep things neat,
like washing machines, need to be cleaned. Back inside the home, we see what it takes to remove the buildup of
detergent and softener that can wear down machines
if not cleaned properly. Hi, I'm Derrick Dennis.
I specialize in repairing and cleaning washing machines,
dryers, any major appliances. The two main types of washing machines that I work on are top
loaders and front loaders. I'm going to show you how I clean them. So, this top-load washer is, I would s
ay, between 15 and 17 years old. This machine here hasn't been cleaned, I would say, ever since it was purchased. The biggest problem with this: the abundance of buildup from
excessive use of detergent, fabric softener. All the buildup you see, that's what causes this
big ring around the top. The water doesn't come up that high. That's why you see the different levels. And then the buildup of mold. The perfect ideal circumstance for mold and mildew buildup is
moisture, darkness, and heat. So, co
mmon buildup in
these machines due to overuse of high-efficiency detergent and fabric softener, which you don't need. This big buildup, you're
going to get rust, you're going to get mold, mildew. 2 tablespoons of high-efficiency detergent and no fabric softener
will make your machine last ages longer than if you're dumping a cup or two of fabric softener in it. It doesn't get your clothes any cleaner. I highly recommend cutting
out fabric softener in your laundry regimen. The reason that I'm so
against fabric softener is when you use fabric softener,
the reason that it works is the reason that it's bad. So it builds up like an oily residue because those enzymes have
been trapped inside your shirt, and so that's what causes it to smell. So it's not because of you, but eventually the overuse
of high-efficiency detergent and fabric softener
will cause your clothes to smell even if they're clean. So anytime we maintenance the
machine, we want to make sure that we're unplugging it
from any
power source, and it's good to cut the water off. So generally we start
from top to the bottom. The main thing is removing the tub and cleaning the inner and outer baskets. That's where all of your smell comes from. With these direct-drive machines, a lot of times we have the legs are rusty, and we'll either scrape
them down, repaint them, make sure we knock the cobwebs
out, all that kind of stuff. Sometimes we'll find a little baby sock. You never know. We like to use toothbrushes,
different-st
yle brushes. You have pointy brushes, flat brushes. They all have different jobs, but brushes are very key. They're vital to everything we do. So the brushes really help to get in there and kind of get in the
corners and the crevices to clean all this mildew and mold out. Sometimes the pressure washer doesn't get inside the balance ring and we have to get some bristles in there and kind of really put
some elbow grease in it. My favorite cleaner is
Pine-Sol, bleach, Lysol. Vinegar is more of what
I
recommend for people to use through a washing cycle. White distilled vinegar
has acetic compounds that help kill some bacterias. When we pressure wash, first
we start at the outside. We can get a lot better
into the balance ring. A pressure washer, the
water finds its ways into all the crevices, and
it does a much better job at pushing out all this mold and mildew and detergent buildup and fabric-softener buildup
all the way out the holes, and then we can just rinse
it out of the inside, and
we have pretty much
a brand-new basket. So the steam cleaning comes, usually comes after the pressure washing, just because we want to
get kind of a final clean. The best thing about the steamer is the water comes out at
a superhigh temperature, and that helps to effectively
sanitize any of these crevices or cracks or anything
that we can't just clean with a pressure washer or bleach. So, the front loader, the
cleaning process, it's similar, but it's a lot different
in the disassembly and just t
he orientation of the basket. I can't remove a basket all
the way from a front loader. I can only clean the front half. The old-school top loaders
are built like tanks. The front loaders are not, but they clean your clothes better. They generally don't need as
much cleaning as a top loader because of the orientation and the way the water spins inside, and the water actually
keeps the tubs cleaner. The biggest part of the smell
that we see is from pump building up lint and debris in there and peo
ple not cleaning it out, and then you stay with a smell, or because people don't wipe out their door seal every
time they use the machine, they keep the door closed, and then that just
builds up a mildew smell. As long as you keep the door open and wipe the door seal out and run a washer-cleaner tablet
through once a month or so, white distilled vinegar. It's not going to smell.
I can guarantee it. So, with this front loader, it actually has a clean-out
spot for the lint. But this is what protec
ts your pump, and this is what helps keep
the smell down internally. Pull the door down. We drain the water out of this little, this is the drain hose that actually pulls whatever
water is left inside the pump, and then we take the
filter out, clean it out, and that's it. It's that simple. I recommend doing this every 30 days. At least every six months. And this is going to prevent odor; it's going to keep your washing machine lasting a whole lot longer. The average lifespan of
pretty much any w
asher says two or three years
before the bearings go out, and that really comes from
the overuse of detergent. So when a detergent breaks
down that oil and grease, it'll cause the bearings
to get rusted, rusty, and then your washing machine will sound like a jet plane taking off. That's bad bearings. It's
really hard to get to if you can't physically
tear these things down and clean them yourself. So the best thing to do
is preventive maintenance. 2 tablespoons of detergent,
no fabric softener a
t all, but if you have to use it,
make sure you dilute it by 50%. You know, when I sell
a machine to somebody, I want them to have the
faith that I have sold them the cleanest used washing machine that they can possibly buy. Narrator: Finally, we
have the dryer vents. These can become packed with lint and dust with regular use over time. Here's how the professionals
tackle the job. My name is Aaron Cotton,
and I am the owner and operator of Dryer Vent
Superheroes of New Orleans. My name is Sophi
a Giordano-Scott. I am the co-owner and business manager of Dryer Vent Superheroes of New Orleans. Aaron: Today we're going to look at how to clean out a dusty dryer vent. The main thing that gets
basically conglomerated in the vent pipes is a lot
of either dead skin cells, pet hair, children's
glitter, regular hair, just dust, dryer detergent,
anything that can stay and stick on our clothes that
can come off in the wash. Sophia: The worst is always
going to be any pet clinics. You're cleaning t
owels daily, and you're not just cleaning towels, but you're cleaning
towels full of pet hair, which is usually thicker and coarser and sometimes more oily than human hair. Aaron: The metal brush
not only breaks it up, but it kind of catches as well. So it caught all that hair, and you can see as I pull it out, it is just almost a whole dog that it seems like I pulled out. Sophia: It was literally just
mounds of hardened pet hair and lint inside, all the way to the exit. And then that exit had a
bout 4 feet of bird's nest just compacted at that end because there was no
vent cover on the end. It was just an open tube. So it took us about two
hours to clean the vent in entirety, get everything out, and we scoped it with our
little camera about six times trying to make sure we got
every little piece out of there. Aaron: As the lint just
gets stuck in there and it builds over time,
the heat can't get out. So the heat just stays there, and it accumulates right
there, and it condenses, and th
at's actually how a fire will start. Sophia: Part of our inspection
when we first go in is to make sure, is this vent
connected within the wall? We only use these types of vents. They are metal but also flexible, but they're the only type
of connection hose vents that can actually contain a fire, as opposed to the foil vents. If you look on the back of your dryer, most dryers will say,
"Don't use a foil vent." And most people just
don't read that warning. Aaron: We get behind the dryer, and we t
ake the metal tube
that's behind the dryer, and we take it off, and
we inspect to make sure that the inside is either dirty or clean, because you either want to
clean it out or replace it. The second step would be to put our rods with the brushes into
the wall with the camera. We can see inside the
wall of what's going on, and the customer can see as well either how dirty or how clean it is. You can definitely tell
almost how long it's been because if it's only been a year or two, maybe a little
or nothing at all. But when we're getting to the
three to five years or plus, you're getting literal mounds
of stuff that's coming out. You know, it's almost like
from a molehill to a mountain of stuff that you're getting
out and you're like, "Wow!" Sophia: It gets really
gross if it's 10-plus years. Aaron: So, after we inspect
it and see how dirty it is, then we take our brushes with our rods. So that goes inside the wall, and our drill basically
just cleans everything out. Sophia: We call thi
s
the vent-polisher brush. It has these metal teeth at the end. So when that goes through your vent, that's going to polish your
vents as well as clean it. So it's going to make it even harder for lint to stick in the future. Aaron: When we take our
HEPA-filter vacuum cleaner, we make sure that no dust gets in the air for either us or the
customer to breathe in. No cleaning solutions or chemicals. Just the brushes and the
HEPA-filter vacuum cleaner really does the job. And then once all that's d
one and clean, we turn towards the inside of the dryers. We get all the lint that might
have been stuck in there. We go back, and we take
our aluminum tube here, and we put everything back
from the wall to the dryer. Sophia: We do use heat-safe
tape on all of our repairs or connection hoses, and
we do also use clamps. The reason why we use both is because you want your
dryer vent to be able to be unhooked every year and cleaned. Aaron: And we push the dryer back, and then we check under the lint
trap. We've definitely found a lot of weird stuff coming from the dryers, especially under the lint trap. I've had one employee as we were cleaning, he pulled out a whole silver chain. I've found money, like
$5 and a couple $1 bills. Sophia: And then, of course,
we get the not-so-fun stuff. Bird eggs and wasp nests. Aaron: That's usually towards
the outside of the house, not in the dryer itself. Sophia: Also storm damage. Whenever we have a bad storm, hurricane, and something gets impacted in t
he vent or the roof comes off or something, you're probably going to
get water in your vent, in which case you need a professional to come and take that out because it's going to
be really nasty water mixed in with all that lint. Aaron: So, we've had
multiple customers tell us, "I've been in this
house for over 10 years, and I haven't even thought
about cleaning it out." And they're like, "Why
are my clothes still wet?" A lot of the times it's not your dryer. It's in fact that line is just clogg
ed up with all the lint and hair and everything. Sophia: The most important thing to do with keeping up your dryer
vent is definitely to get that annual professional cleaning. But in addition to that,
cleaning your lint trap with every use is the biggest one. Aaron: I would say the
most satisfying is leaving with the customers all happy and smiling and knowing that they're safe,
that their house is safe, and that their product is going
to work as they want it to.
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