Our dryer has been taking forever to dry loads so, this morning, I disassembled the vent pipe and scrubbed out all the lint. However, before reassembling the vent, I had an idea.
The current vent run starts at the dryer near floor level, makes a 90 degree turn, runs up 7 vertical feet, makes another 90 degree turn, across 2.5 horizontal feet, 90 degree turn, 20 horizontal feet and exits the side wall of the house. If I ran the vent to the opposite wall, I could shorten this to 90 degree turn, 7 vertical feet, 90 degree turn, 5 horizontal feet, out.
Is this likely to be signifcantly better? Anything I need to check before cutting the new vent hole? Any ideas why this wouldn't have been done the first time?
Details: Below is a photo of the portion of wall I plan to cut through, and a photo of the corresponding exterior wall. I haven't figured out exactly where the cut will emerge yet, but I think it should be near the top of the lowest board, near where the wood siding starts. The vent is 4" cylindrical metal tubing. The dryer is an old Kenmore; the previous owner told us he bought it used in 1995. Finally, my apologies if this posts twice; I seem to be having some confusion about the openID log on.