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Some vents can't be cleaned back to working order, and we say so on the spot. If a flex duct is crushed flat behind the washer and dryer, or the attic run has collapsed sections, or the lint has packed solid against a screened roof cap, brushing it is throwing money at the problem. We'll show you what we're looking at, explain why it won't come out, and tell you whether the fix is a repair to a section or a full new run. We also tell people the opposite when it's true. If you called because a cycle felt slow and the vent turns out to be mostly clear, we'll say the vent isn't your problem and bill you for the visit, not for work you didn't need.

Gulf Coast humidity is the controlling factor on dryer performance here. Air pulled into the dryer is already moisture-laden, so cycles run longer and lint sheds more per load than in dry climates. Slab-on-grade building means no basement laundry; laundry sits on the living level or upstairs, which in the two-story subdivision stock built from the 1980s onward pushes the vent into a long attic run terminating at a roof jack. Those runs cross unconditioned attic space that hits 130-140 degrees in summer and cools fast on winter nights, so warm moist exhaust condenses on duct walls and lint cements rather than blows clear. Older inner-city bungalows and 1950s-60s ranches usually have short exterior-wall runs, but many were retrofitted with flexible foil duct crushed behind the appliance. Add year-round pollen, Saharan dust episodes in summer, and fine soil dust from constant new construction, and most Houston-area vents need clearing every 12 months, sooner for households doing daily loads or venting through the roof. The calls we get most: clothes damp after a full cycle, the laundry room hot and humid, a dryer shutting off early, or birds and wasps in a roof jack with a broken flap.

On site we pull the dryer out, disconnect the transition hose, and read airflow at the exterior hood before we touch anything so we have a starting number. Then we run a rotary brush on a flexible vent line through the duct, turning at the right speed so the brush scrubs the walls instead of drilling a hole through the packed lint. A vacuum stays on the open end to catch what comes loose rather than blowing it into the attic or across your laundry room. We work the roof jack from above when the run terminates there, clear the flap, and check the screen. Then we read airflow at the hood again and tell you what changed. We work behind stacked units, gas and electric, pedestal installs, and the tight second-floor closets these subdivisions are built with, and we handle rigid metal, semi-rigid, and foil duct. What moves the cost on a cleaning here is mostly the run: a short exterior-wall run from a ground-floor laundry is quick, while a long attic run to a roof jack means roof access, two work points, and more time on the brush, and cemented condensation lint takes more passes than dry lint does. If we find damage mid-job, we stop and talk before going further. If you're not sure whether you need a cleaning at all, an inspection answers it.