The Elysian Fields

From Dan Kunkle, at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center:

This is a reminder about our Earth Day Celebration on Saturday, April 21. Here is the schedule.

7:00 a.m. -- bird walk, looking for early spring migrants such as thrushes and Palm Warblers along with our resident species.

9:00 a.m. -- Habitat Garden and invasive plant removal session. The weather has been very uncooperative, and there may be little to do with the gardens, as things have not started growing yet. We will remove some invasive species on the refuge, and will do what we can with the gardens, including making plant labels.

11:00 a.m. -- Native Plant Workshop and Sale. Edge of the Woods Native Plant Nursery will be with us again for a native plant workshop and plants will be available for purchase.

7:30 p.m. -- Join Scott Fisher, who will bring his astronomical telescope for some night sky-watching. Other amateur astronomers are welcome to bring their telescopes. (WEATHER PERMITTING, of course.)

Thanks. Hope to see you at the Gap.

Dan

This PSA is brought to you by nhmetalchick and the letter bee...

• The modern house designers and builders are morons. Refer back to this point often - you're very likely to have situations that break most, if not all, of the four design specs that follow and make the last point difficult.


• Dryer venting needs to be very short - enough to get up to ground level (if below ground) and out. Shorter is safer. Ours is about 20 feet or more, twice the recommended maximum


• Site dryers against an outer wall. Ours is nice and cosy, dead center, hence the 20' vent


• Dryer venting needs to be made of metal - those old vinyl hoses don't cut it. Ours is a heavy pipe, which is not ideal, but given the location, retrofitting something else would be very expensive.


• Dryer venting needs as few twists and turns as possible. Aim for none. Flexible metal hose is sometimes necessary, but not desirable. Ours goes through a short run of flexible metal hose to the aforementioned pipe, which has a couple serious contortions before a long straight run.


• Clean your dryer vent at least once a month, whether it needs it or not. Unless you don't use the dryer, or, perhaps, if you run it without any fabric-based items inside it, it will need it.

The lint trap on the drier catches only a small portion of the lint from each load of laundry. The rest goes out the vent. It is moist, and clings to the walls of the smoothest pipe - the flexible hoses will catch obscene amounts of the stuff. Animals like mice like to nest in vents - cages on the vent exit will prevent some from entering; automatically opening and closing doors will prevent others.

If the vent is ideal (a straight metal pipe about a foot long), you can clean it with a simple brush. If not, I recommend something like the LintEater System and Extension kit - which happens to be exactly what we use. It attaches to any drill and, combined with a vacuum or the dryer itself will make relatively easy work out of the job.

A couple of caveats: when you're spinning a long set of extension rods in or out of the vent, do not let them touch vegetation. The stuff will get tangled quickly, and, in addition to getting yanked out by the roots and leaving bare spots, it is a pain to clear off and cut free. The kit comes with a guard for the dryer to protect the blower from the brush so you can leave the dryer in place and not ruin the motor by jamming the brush into it. In my experience, this provides a very efficient lint trap which will plug up your venting in about, oh, three weeks. Completely plugged up. Which is what you're trying to avoid - I would advise not using it and doing the extra work to unhook the drier and use a vacuum (we use a cheap, under-powered shop vac and it does the job quite well.)

EDIT: added the ideas and energy tags to help track the discussion silme brought up about condenser dryers