I have a 2 year old Sears Elite Gas Dryer, it has developed a smell in our clothes and especially towels, that smells like the exhaust of the dryer. It is really strong when the towels are re-wetted when drying off. The smell will stay on the skin.

I have cleaned the lint screen, fan, cabinet, burner tube, the vent going outside. There was very little lint in the unit. There is also no chemicals being used in the house or stored nearby, I have flushed out the water heater, and softener, changed the whole house water filter as well, we have city water. The fresh air intake is within 4' of the dryer and is clear. I have tried different heat and auto sensing settings, also manual timer settings, I tried air fluff after drying, but the odor remains.

I could smell the odor outside when the unit is running from the exhaust hood. The vent run is about 23' long, 9' straight up, 90° bend, horizontal for 9', a 90° turn and straight out 5'. It is rigid aluminum with foil tape at the joints.

I have done everything I could think of and Sears can't find anything wrong. What am I missing or what should I do?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

sasmith

Hope this helps you ~ I found this helpful to me from an expert at another website::)

Since your dryer has to blow exhaust air out through the ducts, the shorter the duct work the better. The total recommended length is normally less than 25 feet from the back of your dryer to the outside vent cover -- that's with a straight running exhaust duct. If you have bends and turns, it should be an even shorted distance. The more turns and the further the distance, the harder your dryer must work to move exhaust air and loose lint -- and the harder your dryer works and the longer it runs, the sooner it will wear out and have to be replaced or repaired. If your dryer has clogged vents and ducts, there are usually a few signs you'll see:

* Loads of clothing will take longer to dry;
* clothing will be very hot and still damp when dryer finishes (heavy items especially, like towels);
* the dryer itself will feel hotter;
* there may be NO lint on the lint screen (ie, the exhaust system is clogged)

A lint-clogged dryer can often consume $20 worth of extra electricity every month trying to dry your clothes - so it makes good sense to keep your dryer clean.

So what kind of maintenance do you need to do for your dryer? Lint tends to build up in 3 areas: inside the lint trap, inside the flexible duct hose behind the dryer, and inside the in-wall duct work leading to the outside vent flap. The first step is to clean the lint trap after every load of laundry. How do you clean the lint trap? You pull out the lint trap and scrape out the lint with your fingers or bang it over the trash can to clear it out, then replace it. When you pull out the lint trap, look around inside the dryer in the pocket where it sat -- if you see more loose lint there, take it out (you can use your hand, a brush, or your vacuum). By doing this simple cleaning regularly, you will avoid 90% of dryer vent problems. Each year (or sooner if you suspect a problem) you should unplug your dryer and pull it out from the wall, then disconnect the exhaust tube from the dryer and the wall and clean it out with a vacuum. That cleans out area #2. Area #3 is the in-wall duct work that leads to the outside. Clean out this area using a vacuum or blower along with a dryer brush or auger (see below), put everything back together and in place, and you're done.
Professional Dryer Vent Cleaning Service
You can pay someone to come out and clean your dryer vent and ducts for you. How much does dryer vent cleaning cost? Expect to pay from $75 to $200, depending on what all they offer and if it is part of a package of other services. You can do a search for "dryer vent cleaning" in Google and you will usually find some local contractors advertising for service in your area. Get written quotes and references from several before selecting one. The actual vent cleaning job is not real technical or complicated -- with the right tools (see below), the average homeowner can do the job themselves in less than an hour.
Best Home Dryer Cleaning Kits
OK, so you decide you want to clean out your dryer vents and ducts by yourself. You can do some of it yourself with just a shop-vac, but in most cases you'll need some extra tools like a dryer brush or auger and some flexible rod attachments (so it can go around bends and turns) that connect to a power drill. You can buy a number of dryer vent cleaning tool kits that include everything you need, from the brushes to the rods to special vacuum adapters. Most kits we found cost about $20. The Gardus LintEater ($20.99 at Amazon.com) comes with five 36" rods that will reach up to 15 feet through duct work, a blockage removal tool (looks like a hook), a 4" auger brush, a smaller lint brush, and a vacuum and dryer adapter. You connect the rods to the brush, connect the whole thing to your drill, then send it through the ductwork, using either a vacuum or the dryer blower to blast out the loose material. The rotating brush scours the sides of the tubes, scraping any lint free. Overall, the kit is rugged and performs well - we cleared out a small bag of lint from our dryer vent, which has to stretch about 12 feet through the attic to get outside. You can see a video of how to clean your dryer vents and ducts using the LintEater on YouTube here. You can see some additional accessories they offer on their website: rewci.com/dryerventclean.html. Keep in mind you need either a strong battery-powered drill or an electric drill to connect to the rods and brush attachments. Another product is the Ontel Dryer-Max Lint Removal Kit for $20. It comes with a 10 foot long brush attachment, a separate 36" lint trap brush, and vacuum attachment -- works quite well. There are a few other cheaper kits and individual brushes, but we'd go with the LintEater -- it's affordable, it works, and it gets good reviews.
Dryer Fire Hazards - Do You Need to Clean Your Dryer Vent?
You can read the fire hazard and safety warning from the Consumer Product Safety Commission here. They recorded more than 15,000 dryer-related fires back in 1998. Basically, they confirm the things we have already covered about keeping your dryer vent and duct clean -- like cleaning the lint trap after each use, cleaning out the ducts and vents regularly, cleaning behind the dryer, having the right kind of duct material, and using caution when cleaning oil or chemical soiled items. Further reports have shown that most dryer fires occurred with older dryers without thermostats (or broken thermostats), with crushed or kinked hoses in the back of the dryer, and often with a missing lint screen. So by keeping your dryer clean and in decent working condition, chances are you will not have to worry about a fire.

You were probably using some sort of volatile coating (eurathane, mineral spirits, linoleum glue, etc... ). Gas dryers have a bad habit of picking those those smells up and concentrating them in clothes. Check out this discussion thread: http://www.doityourself.com/forum/kitchen-laundry-bbq-gas-appliances/22739-gas-dryer-smells-like-kerosene.html

Paint, glues and finishes are probably the most likely cause if the smell only happens when the dryer is running and the condition comes on suddenly. Certainly venting could be the issue too, but this would happen as soon as you install the dryer (in the situation where the run is too long) or appear over time (if the vent has become dirty and clogged). We've found that even when our dryer vent is nearly clogged (it is over 16 feet long with 3 elbows) all we typically see is clothes taking longer to dry and not the smell. Also you might see lint accumulation around the dryer as the air finds new places to escape as the back pressure builds and additional humidity in your laundry room.