Venting Electric Dryer Into Attic

To make the dyer more efficient you can buy an inexpensive heat diverter and install it in the exhaust duct of electric dryers only not gas dryers you ll save about 50 worth of heat per load in the winter.

Venting electric dryer into attic.

When our dryer was replaced we decided to bring the dryer venting system early 1960 up to code by replacing the tubing that vented into the attic. That is the old material type tubing simply ended by a overhang side of the house where it exhaused into the attic and not outside. Sometimes such as in town homes or condos it s not possible to vent a dryer through a wall outside. Every electric dryer has to have an outlet through which it expels warm moist air or it won t work.

The attic is usually colder than the rest of the house during the winter and that can create a problem for a dryer vent. But we don t recommend it for two reasons. Dryer lint is also highly flammable. You can buy a box called an indoor dryer vent kit at home improvement stores and it manages to control most of the lint but not the water dumped into the air.

A dryer vent should be vented outside. Venting the dryer outside in cold weather wastes a lot of heat. Some homeowners use a much simpler system of venting down into a bucket of water like in the photo at the top of this page. Not all dryers will allow for this so be sure to check the owners manual to ensure it can be vented in this manner.

The problem with attics. For dryers that are located in a place where venting to the outside is difficult it s ok to simply vent the dryer into a container of water.