Customer Reviews

Gardus RLE202 LintEater 10-Piece Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning System

5 star:		(203)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

We have a 15' long vent that needed cleaning and, in short, this system worked very well! Just a couple notes: 1) follow the directions! The instructions tell you not to add the next rod until the prior rod is 2/3s of the way into the vent. It might look easier to try to connect 2 or 3 rods to your drill and then attempt to feed the whole thing into the vent, but that does not work! The rods are so flexible that the torque from the drill will start spinning them around like a jump rope! Just follow the directions and it works as the vendor promises. 2) The adapter for the vacuum is to fit a shop vac. So if you don't have one you'll have to use a regular vacuum. But it won't easily fit the adapter so you may need to use a bit of 2" wide tape to connect it to the end of the vent. Perfectly easy to do, but an extra step. 3) Finally, our package came with a short DVD that futher illusrtated how to do the job. Very nice touch.

In summary: Good system that worked as the ad said it would. Took me about 60 mins from when I started the job to having completed the job with everything cleaned up and the dryer back in working order.

It's a well put together kit, with all the parts you need and clear instructions. The DVD is quite helpful, and all you really need to do is to watch it. I had a buddy helping me, which is not necessary but I recommend it. Together it took us about 40 minutes, which included about 15 minutes of trying to get the @%@#*$% hose back on the dryer.

This system really does work. The amount of time it takes to dry my clothes has dropped remarkably, 10 to 15 minutes less per load. Even at 10 to 15 minutes less per load, the stuff comes out bone dry. The kit is totally reuseable, so the owner can box it back up and haul it out again in a year. A handyman would charge (in my area) $100 to $125 to clean the dryer hose, so this is a great deal.

I did find, though, that my wimpy 12 volt drill did not have enough umph to really spin the brush. My 19.2 volt drill, though, did the trick no problem. A stout corded drill would probably be up to the task as well. I also found that I did a good bit of cleaning up inside the dryer itself. Lots of lint stuck up in there. Don't neglect that part of the job.

This is a good system and I highly recommend it.

I used this to clean my 22 foot vent run. While it does work, the instructions to set the drill clutch slip point could use some work. I set it as described, but still stripped out the vent brush, during the first use. The brush hub is plastic and the flexible rod that screws into it is too small, so the threads in the plastic strip easily. This would be an easily fixed design error, and I guess I'll have to fix the stripped brush on my own, I just don't think I should have to. I tried to contact Gardus to get a replacement, but got no response. So I suspect that this is a common occurrence and is too expensive for them to either correct the brush design or give replacements for failed parts. The parts in the box are useful for cleaning both the vent and the dryer. Other than the brush being easily damaged, it is a well thought out kit.
Update...a new brush showed up on my door step today. Gardus came thru with a replacement part.

So, this is what life comes down to when you are 50 years old: reviewing dryer vent cleaners while sitting at your kitchen table waiting for American Idol. This is not what I envisioned when I was 12, I can tell you that much. You kids who think it won't happen to you?

It will. Sorry to burst your bubble.

That said, the product works great. Our dryer pretty much stopped working and we were thinking we needed a new one, which was seriously going to eat into my plastic surgery budget. One last shot before a trip to the appliance store was this Gardus LintEater. My husband, who is not the handy one of the family, had to do the work as I have a torn labrum. (Which sounds dirtier than it is - that's part of your shoulder.) He, the clumsiest man in the world, had absolutely no problem using this. I warned him to read the directions first, and he actually listened and followed. He hooked it up to the drill, and away he went. He got a bunch of musty, wet lint that had probably been up inside the wall since 1977 - probably consisting of bell bottom material and macramé.

Now our dryer actually dries clothes again, and I can continue to save for my facelift. Thank you Gardus.

This tool is great. I ranked it 4 only bc I was not the one to use it- my hubby did the work and he is not here to say if it is a 5 or not.

He had no trouble following the directions and since our dryer was being replaced he was able to clean the vent from both ends. We have a very long vent- over 15 ft. so getting in from both ends was important. On one end he used the tool attached to the drill and he placed the shop vac at the other end. Then he changed ends and did it again. He says next time he will do it all from the outside and just put the shopvac in next to the rotary cleaner and let it suck the debris up. This is so he will not have to move the new dryer and take off the vent which has been very securely mounted onto the dryer when the guys came to install the dryer last week. My husband feels that the vent will still get well cleaned from the one end. If your vent is shorter then the tool extensions you have no worries!

We had been quoted $125- $250 to have this work done! Now we can keep up with it and hopefully get a longer life form our dryer and better drying times.

I am so glad we bought this!

I have a dryer duct that's about 35 ft long with three turns, so I ordered one with the 12' extension kit (GARDUS INC #R-3203612 12' Dry Vent Extention Kit), figuring I could clean part of it from one end, and part from the other. I used a 3/8" drill to turn the brush (you need a drill - forget about turning it by hand), keeping the drill on the low speed setting, and slowly fed the brush in, adding the three foot rod sections as I went.

I got about 12 ft into the duct OK, but when I added the next extension, the brush head just sheared off. I tried fishing it out with a wire snake, but gave up after a while, and spent the next three hours disassembling the duct to get the brush out - lucky for me the duct was mostly exposed - if it had been behind drywall or in the ceiling, it would have been a whole other story.

In disassembling the duct, I saw that the brush had done a pretty good job of cleaning the straight sections, but there was still significant buildup in the bends that I had to scrape out by hand. The white plastic rod had sheared off about 4 inches from the bristles but was not obviously stuck on anything.

I guess if you have a small section of duct, it will probably work, but throw in a couple of curves, and I think it's really pushing the limit at 12 ft.

The exhaust duct for my dryer is almost 30 horizontal feet, I've never been able to clean it. I needed to replace my dryer recently and purchased this tool so I could do the cleaning as well. It was surprisingly effective, reamed out years of compacted lint from the duct walls which the dryer blew though to the outside for collecting.

I did have to use my corded drill motor to drive it, the portable battery drill was too weak to force it though the turns in the duct. I started at the duct outlet end and worked it all the way in. Then I went inside to the dryer end and pushed it through from that direction to get full coverage. Airflow was very much improved, I expect to recover the cost in a year or two.

I have about 20 feet of dryer vent running from my downstairs laundry room out to the opening underneath my front porch. I could tell there was no way to try and replace it, and my laundry was taking longer and longer to dry, which was a sign that it's probably getting clogged up with lint. I found this item on Amazon and decided to give it a try.

The product works absolutely great. Having a shop vac is a must though. There is an attachment that you put on one end of your vent (usually the inside access) and plug your shop vac into it (fits perfectly snug). Then on the other end of the vent, you insert the cleaning want attached to a standard drill, and continue to add attachments as needed. The brush attachment scrubs the inside of the vent and the shop vac sucks out all the lose lint. After cleaning my vent, I was curious how much lint I had removed, so I cut open my 16 gallon shop vac bag and found it about 1/2 full! Glad I did this sooner than later!

This is a useful, if flawed, laundry dryer vent cleaning package, though it may be worthwhile if you have a long, complicated duct. The main cleaning unit is a set of four 36" flexible plastic rods and two brushes. The rods have metal threaded mounts allowing the rods to screw together and for the attachment of one of the brushes. After detaching the duct from the dryer the rods with brush are attached to a drill and run through the entire duct and outside vent. Unfortunately the rod has a tendency to pop out of the drill. The metal caps on the rods appear too thick to be securely held by the drill. I used a 3/8" cordless 18 volt drill with the torque reduced. Gardus should provide a "reducer" that would attach to one of the rods to improve the fit with the drill. On the positive side, the items are reasonably well made, with detailed instruction on both paper and DVD. One of the brushes can be used to clean out the lint trap vent, though I didn't find it that effective.

If you have a short, simple laundry dryer duct, you may have somewhat cheaper alternatives to the Gardus. If your duct is made from foil or vinyl, they are not considered safe, and so not worth cleaning. You need to replace them with a stiff or flexible sheet metal duct, the former preferred. If you already have a flexible sheet metal duct of less than eight feet, a replacement duct with pressure clamps is only about $10. With a short metal duct you can use a leaf blower to clean the detached duct, though some lint residue may still adhere to the duct's inner wall. Make sure the vent between the wall and the outside is also clean. Before detaching the duct from the dryer you may also want to run the blower through the lint trap vent--after removing the screen. Finally, you should also vacuum out the duct entrance on the back of the dryer. The Gardus package includes a couple of adapters for both a shop vac and a leaf blower, but I didn't find them that useful.

Thank you very much for this excellent product.

We have been having problems with our dryer taking forever to dry our clothes and I discovered the vent was jam packed with lint. I attached a small cleaning brush to a "fish tape" of the sort that electricians use and managed to work it through the entire vent. When the scrubbing produced no additional lint, I hooked the dryer back up, but still no air flow. I have about 18 ft of dryer vent hidden in an inaccessible partition between two floors. I could see that about 3 ft at each end was clear via visual inspection. I naturally assumed that I had removed all the obstructions because my brush could travel freely through the vent.

Looking for any info on this problem, an internet search found this product. The web site instructional video is also excellent. Since my only other option was to run new vent or tear out the old one, it seemed worth a try. The flexible rods navigated the vent without any problem and an amazing assortment of lint, twigs, leaves, etc came flying out. Problem solved and our dryer is now running perfectly! To make it even easier to use, I fed the push rod through a two foot metal pipe. While my right hand held the drill, I held on to the metal pipe with my left and this prevented the last push rod from a tendency to twist up on itself.

This product should be sold in every hardware, plumbing and HVAC store. I especially like how thorough the kit is - complete with useful extra fittings and DVD.

Modern dryers will turn off or kill the flame when air flow is impeded. Older models will just continue to run at max temperature - creating a fire hazard. So you might have someone return a dryer as malfunctioning when it is simply a lint blockage.

All in all an elegantly simple and 100% effective product.