Dryer Vent Repair & Installation

Crushed sections, disconnected joints, and damaged exterior hoods are what we see most. A vent hose gets crushed when furniture or a renovation pushes against it, a joint comes apart when a dryer gets moved and reconnected without being checked, and exterior hoods crack or corrode over time, especially near the coast. Any of these can look like a clog from the symptoms alone — slow drying, a burning smell — but no amount of cleaning fixes a physical break in the line.

Code generally allows a maximum developed duct length of 35 feet from the dryer connection to the exterior termination — but bends count against that limit. Each 90-degree elbow adds the equivalent of 5 feet to your total developed length; each 45-degree elbow adds about 2.5 feet. A run that looks like “only 28 feet of straight duct” can easily exceed the 35-foot maximum once you add three 90-degree bends (28 + 15 = 43 feet developed length) — which is a common situation in additions, remodeled laundry rooms, and multi-story homes with roof termination. When a run genuinely can’t be shortened — a structural constraint, a remodel that relocated the laundry room permanently, a multi-story home where the roof is the only practical termination — a listed booster fan, installed by a licensed electrician and rated for dryer exhaust, can extend the allowable length. But a booster fan is an exception, not a first choice: it adds a component that itself requires maintenance and inspection, and re-routing to a shorter, code-compliant run is generally the better long-term fix when construction allows it. We’ll tell you honestly which situation you’re in rather than defaulting to whichever repair is more profitable for us.

Kitchen and laundry room remodels are one of the most common reasons a home ends up with an awkward, overly long vent run — the appliance moved, but nobody thought through the venting implications until later. We can re-route an existing line to something shorter and more efficient, which sometimes solves a recurring lint problem better than repeated cleanings ever could.

Florida building code has specific requirements around dryer vent material, length, and termination that matter both for safety and for insurance and resale purposes. If your home has flexible plastic venting or a run that’s longer than code typically allows without a booster fan, we’ll flag it and explain your options — not push you into a repair you don’t need.

A lot of handyman-style fixes treat a damaged vent section as a tape-and-patch job rather than a code-compliance question. That’s a real problem in Florida specifically, where the code requirements around material and run length exist because flexible venting and overlong runs are measurably more dangerous in a state with our humidity and fire-risk profile. We diagnose repairs against the actual Florida code standard, not just “does it look fixed,” which matters both for your safety and for resale — an inspector or appraiser who finds non-compliant venting during a future sale is a problem you can avoid now.