Tried a fiberglass brush on a dryer vent today instead of my usual drill attachment

I've been using those rotary drill attachments for cleaning dryer vents for like 3 years now. They work fine but man do they chew up the inside of flexible ducts something awful. Last week a customer in Cleveland showed me her old fiberglass brush setup that her dad used back in the 90s. So I picked one up at the supply house for $12 and tried it on a job this morning. It took a little more elbow grease but the vent came out way cleaner and I didn't have to worry about shredding the foil lining. The brush grabbed all the lint in one pass too, not just pushed it around like the drill attachment sometimes does. Has anyone else switched back to a manual brush for certain jobs?

3 comments

3 Comments

jasonf171d ago

Wait, are we talking about the same job here? I tried a fiberglass brush a few years back on a tight 90 degree turn and it took me 20 minutes to get half the lint out, plus I had fibers stuck in my gloves for the rest of the day. The rotary attachment might scuff up cheap foil ducts but it saves my shoulders and gets the job done in 5 minutes flat. You said the brush grabbed everything in one pass but I found it just packed the lint tighter into the corrugated grooves if I didn't go slow. Maybe your customer's dad was onto something for straight runs, but I see way too many tight bends to go back to manual.

faith_thomas1d ago

Hold up @jasonf17 are you really acting like 20 minutes of manual work is some kind of backbreaking tragedy lmao. A little elbow grease never killed anyone and honestly if your drill attachment is shredding the duct you're just creating a new problem down the line when that foil tears and lint builds up in the gap. I get that tight 90s can be a pain but that Cleveland guy's setup worked for years so maybe the issue is technique not the tool.

ellis.leo1d ago

One of my buddies in Toledo tried that fiberglass brush setup last winter and ended up snapping the handle off inside a 4-inch rigid pipe. He said he was trying to get through a 90 degree turn and just put too much torque on it. The brush head got stuck in there so bad he had to cut the whole duct out and replace it with a new section. Took him twice as long as just using his regular drill attachment would have. He still talks about it every time I see him lol.