Tag Archives: shop vac

How to Clean a Dryer Vent Easily

Posted on by June 9, 2013
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Rotary LintEater Kit RLE202

 

This is how I clean a dryer vent quickly and easily. When they designed this house, the dryer was a long way from the outside wall, so they put a 10 foot plastic pipe in the concrete foundation. It has been a headache from the start. Lint collects on the walls of the pipe and has been impossible to clean effectively. Even worse there are two 90 degree bends. The best I could do was scrape the sides with an 8 foot long stick and blow the lint out with an electric leaf blower. Happily I found a solution on Amazon that really works. A Gardus RLE202 LintEater Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning System. Not a catchy name for sure, but I love it. Here is a link to it on Amazon. It is an affiliate link but costs you nothing. Gardus RLE202 LintEater 10-Piece Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning System

I dreaded trying to clean the vent, but when it takes forever for my clothes to dry and you know they are wearing themselves out – something had to be done.

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The LintEater comes with an 2 brushes, a cutter tip for rain gutter use, 4- 3′ flexible rods and 2 adaptors to fit to a standard 4″ dryer vent.  I used the adaptor to hook my shop vac to the dryer vent while brushing it out. A clean way to do it. No dust in my face. If you don’t have a shop vac, you could turn on the dryer to air dry and clean from the outside. A dryer doesn’t blow very hard though. You can see from the pictures the rods are very flexible and when screwed together reach 12 feet. You do need to attach the rods to a power drill to spin the brush. This gives it the great cleaning action. The instructions suggest you wrap some tape around the area where the rods are screwed together. This is to prevent them from unscrewing if you accidentally switch the drill into reverse.

IMG_1475IMG_1473Cleaning Dryer Vent

 

In the pictures above you can see the brush fed through the dryer vent plug, then it is inserted into the vent. This vent was cleaned several months ago so the buildup is not bad. Not like when I first did it!

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I attached my shop vac to the vent and then fed the cleaner, attached to my drill,  into the vent. Since I vent wasn’t too dirty, I did all twelve feet at one time . Feed it in slowly, with a back and forth motion to scrub the vent. The first time I did it, I added one three foot section at a time. Making sure that each section of the vent was clean before adding on another rod. When the vent is caked with lint, it causes friction on the brush. The rods are flexible and want to whip. Adding one rod at a time reduces this.

The brush is short so can get around elbows. This is where it really shines for me. At the far end close to the dryer there are 2 elbows. This traps lint. When the cleaner hits that area, I can really hear the lint being sucked into the vacuum. You can see the collected lint in the picture above

After years of my dryer vent being half-way clogged, it is clean. This product makes it easy. Now I clean it whenever I feel the dryer is taking too long to dry clothes. This saves wear and tear on my clothes and energy. As you can tell I am real happy with this product.
Gardus RLE202 LintEater 10-Piece Rotary Dryer Vent Cleaning System

 

 

Oneida Dust Deputy Review

Posted on by March 26, 2017
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Ridgid WD1450 and Oneida Dust Deputy

Ridgid WD1450 and Dust Deputy

Oneida Dust Deputy Review. As mentioned in my previous post on the Home Depot  Ridgid 14 gallon shop vac, it is great except for the filter clogging rapidly. I needed a way to pre-filter the air. I decide upon hooking up an Oneida Dust Deputy to my Ridgid Wet/Dry Vacuum. This dust separator was the solution.

Their are quite a few dust separators on the market, including one that Rockler sells. Kits are also available to make your own. Fortunately, I saw a video by Marc Spagnuolo the   “Wood Whisperer” where he did a comparison of four brands. The Oneida looked like the one for me. I ordered one and it arrived on my doorstep. The Dust Deputy sold on Amazon is basically 2 heavy duty 5 gallon buckets with a cyclone separator on top. The bottom bucket is used if you want to put wheels on it and attach it to your shop vac like I show above. Then you

Oneida Dust Deputy Attached WD1450

Dust Deputy Attached WD1450

slide the top bucket into it. This is for easy removal when you need to empty the dust and chips. Oneida gives you the parts to physically attach it to your vacuum (bolts, foam spacer block, wheels) So it rolls along with your vac. I did not do this right away. Oneida also includes a good quality  hose to hook the cyclone up to the vacuum. If you want to attach it to your vac, cut the foam block to the vacuum’s profile and run the 2 bolts between the bucket and the vac. Yes you have to drill two holes in your vac.

How good does it work? It works great! I emptied my vacuum and attached the Dust Deputy. After vacuuming up a bunch of sawdust and chips, there was just the tiniest bit in the shop vac. Like a teaspoon full if that. Good news for me, I could then install filter bags since they would not fill up quickly. Now the suction remains constantly strong. I move the unit to the power tool I am using, but usually have it hooked up to my table saw. I also use it to clean up the shop.

The unit does build up a static charge. Oneida gives you some copper tabe to attach to the cyclone to dissipate it. You then attach a wire to a washer that drags on the ground to “ground out” the charge. I did get a good jolt one time, though not exactly sure how. Regardless, I am very happy with this product and would buy it again.

Oneida Dust Deputy Dust collection bucket

Dust Deputy Dust collection

Ridgid WD1450 Wet/Dry Vac Review

Posted on by June 20, 2013
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Ridgid WD1450

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my review of the Ridgid WD1450 wet/dry vacuum. I was tired of the dust coming from all my power tools and flying all over the garage. I did not want to pay for a shop dust collection system, so I decided to get a good shop vac and see what it could do. I settled on one from Home Depot after reading many reviews. The Ridgid WD1450 is about $100 and gets you a well built, 14 gallon, relatively quite, powerful wet/dry vacuum. It comes with a hose, 2 wands, a surface cleaner attachment, and a bag that carries attachments on the vac. There are many additional attachments available at Home Depot. I like that it comes with a long power cord. I have been happy with all  the Ridgid products I have purchased.

This thing is powerful. Keep small children and pets away when using! OK that is a joke, but it is strong. I needed a lot of suction because I wanted to use it on shop tools like a table saw. It does the job with my table saw. It doesn’t get all the dust, because my saw isn’t designed for efficient dust collection, but it really helps keep the small stuff out of the air. I think it is a real bargain for the price.

The one complaint I have with it, is the suction is so strong, it lifts most of the collected dust into the pleated filter instead of leaving it on the bottom of the vac chamber. This clogs the filter quickly cutting down on the suction. I hate cleaning filters and I had to do it often. Home Depot does sell bags to use with this vac. They work well and the suction doesn’t fall as quickly with them. With as much saw dust that I collect, this can get expensive real quick. So I found a solution I will share in my next post. Dust Deputy

Ridgid WD1450 Filter Bags

Ridgid WD1450 Pleated Filter and Filter Bags