The technician showed me exactly what he was doing, step by step, while he worked. It was really interesting to look inside the flue with his tablet camera. Very open service!
Dryer vent cleaning, every foot of the run cleared
If a load that used to finish in one cycle now needs two, the dryer isn’t the problem — the duct behind it is. We open the run from the exhaust collar to the outside termination and clear it end to end, in Cherry Hill’s ranch basements and its townhouse chases alike.
5.0from 15 Google reviews38 towns across 11 New Jersey counties · open 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM, every day
The two-cycle problem
“It only takes two cycles now” is usually the first sentence we hear, and it is the right one to lead with — a dryer has exactly one way to get hot, wet air out of the house, and once lint starts packing a bend or a flat run, that path narrows a little more with every load, unseen inside the wall. In Cherry Hill Township’s 1950s-through-1970s colonials and ranches the run is usually short and close to straight; in its condo and townhouse sections — 8.1 percent of the township’s housing is single-family attached — it climbs through a shared chase and turns at least once, which is exactly the shape that collects lint fastest.
Why the symptom shows up in the laundry room first
Lint that slips past the trap does not vanish — it settles wherever the airflow slows down: at an elbow, on a rise, anywhere the pipe sags between two supports. It builds from the inside wall of the duct inward, so the opening narrows gradually while the outside of the machine looks exactly as it always has. The first sign is a longer cycle; the second is a dryer running hotter, because the same heat now has less air carrying it out of the house.
- A load that used to finish in one cycle now needs two, or part of a third.
- The top of the machine gets noticeably warm to the touch partway through a load.
A vent that has narrowed does not announce itself. It just asks your dryer to work through it twice.
What actually decides how long a run can be
New Jersey’s one- and two-family construction code, the 2024 IRC, treats the dryer exhaust duct as a fixed budget rather than a suggestion. Every foot of pipe and every turn it takes counts against that budget, which is why two houses with the same dryer can behave completely differently.
- 35 feet of developed length is the limit the code allows for a dryer exhaust duct, IRC M1502.4.6.1.
- Each 90-degree elbow the duct takes subtracts 5 feet from that 35-foot allowance; a 45-degree elbow costs half as much.
- The code also calls for the finished length to be labeled within 6 feet of the connection, M1502.4.7 — a label most homes built before the rule simply do not have.
Why this gets treated as a safety job, not a chore
Lint is dry, fine fiber sitting directly in the path of hot air leaving the house. A restricted duct does not just slow a load down — it raises the temperature of the trapped air, with nowhere to go but back toward the machine and the wall it is mounted to. That is why a blocked dryer vent is treated differently from a dusty supply register: one is about comfort, the other about how hot an appliance is allowed to run before something in its path gives out.
- Clothes come out of the dryer hot to the touch but still noticeably damp.
- The machine cuts a cycle short on its own, tripping an internal safety limit.
The same rule, three very different houses
A dryer in a Haddonfield colonial, in a borough where half the housing predates 1940, sits behind a duct that was never part of the original plan. A twin in Collingswood, built during the 1910-1930 trolley boom, often shares a wall and a chase with the house next door. A rancher in Pennsauken from the 1950s tract-building years usually has the shortest, straightest run of the three, dropped through a rim joist near the machine. None of that history changes the math: length and bends decide how much lint a run holds, not the decade the house was built or which of these towns it sits in.
Recent work
A few feet of what actually comes out
Debris pulled from a single run, laid out after clearing.
The inside of a run before clearing, narrowed along one wall.
A full section removed in one piece rather than broken up.
What Cherry Hill customers say
5.0
15 reviews on Google
Read on
I have an ancient farm home with an unlined brick chimney. They cleaned the soot away with soft brushing without disturbing any of the ancient interior mortar joints.
The tech pointed out a small fracture in our firebrick that I would have overlooked entirely. Patched it up there for a very fair amount.
Dryer vent cleaning — frequently asked questions
How do I know if my dryer vent actually needs cleaning?
The clearest sign is time: a load that used to finish in one cycle now needs two, or the machine feels warmer on top partway through a run. Neither is the dryer wearing out — both point at a duct that has narrowed.
How long is a dryer exhaust duct allowed to be?
New Jersey’s 2024 IRC sets the limit at 35 feet of developed length for a dryer exhaust duct under M1502.4.6.1. Each 90-degree elbow subtracts 5 feet from that allowance, a 45-degree elbow subtracts 2.5 feet — so a run with three tight turns can use up its allowance before it ever reaches an exterior wall.
What is the difference between dryer vent cleaning and air duct cleaning?
A dryer vent is one dedicated duct from the back of the machine to the outside air, carrying nothing but hot, lint-laden exhaust. Your home’s air ducts are a separate branching system moving heated and cooled air to every room, cleaned for a different reason — dust and comfort, not fire risk.
How often should a dryer vent actually be cleaned?
There is no single number that fits every house — the honest answer is the run itself. A short, straight duct to a nearby exterior wall stays clear far longer than one that climbs a chase and turns twice before it gets outside. The two-cycle symptom is a better guide than a date on the calendar.
The rest of the air and dryer work
Air duct cleaning
A straight answer on whether your supply and return runs actually need it, and what changes in the house when they do.
See the serviceDuct repair & replacement
Crushed runs, disconnected joints and sections leaking conditioned air into a crawlspace, put right or replaced.
See the service