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picture of inside an electric dryer, showing the metal exhaust vent next to the plastic blower housing

The metal air duct pipe inside my electric dryer does not seem to completely seal against the plastic housing of the exhaust blower fan.

Is it safe to use metal foil heat tape to join them together, and make sure there is a good seal?

This seems to be placed far enough away from the heating element. And the housing for the blower fan is made of plastic itself. That seems to suggest if they made the part out of plastic, it would not get too hot. So should foil heat tape also be okay?

To be clear: this is nashua style foil heat tape like this, the same I would use around the exhaust vent outside the dryer.

Background: I took my dryer apart to clean it. There is a lot of lint! I want to prevent lint from getting inside, if possible. I'm considering using foil heat tape around the exhaust vent, and around the metal guard that holds the lint trap, so nothing can get back into the body of the dryer.

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Update: I called the manufacturer help line. They were not helpful and did not understand what I was asking. The agent could not directly answer any of my questions; they simply typed them to someone else, and relayed confused answers. I do not feel confident in any of the feedback. I have gone ahead and wrapped the vent with heat tape. If I experience any fires or my house burns down, I will attempt to update this thread.

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  • If that is a picture of your dryer you did a phenomenal job cleaning it!
    – Willk
    Jan 18, 2021 at 3:39
  • @Willk ha ha, thank you. It's just vacuumed, and then a wet cloth with a lot of elbow grease. With gloves. There are a lot of sharp metal edges in there.
    – culix
    Jan 18, 2021 at 19:42
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    I called the manufacturer help line. They were not helpful and did not understand what I was asking. The agent could not directly answer any of my questions; they simply typed them to someone else, and relayed confused answers. I do not feel confident in any of the feedback. I have gone ahead and wrapped the vent with heat tape. If I experience any fires or my house burns down, I will attempt to update this thread.
    – culix
    Jan 23, 2021 at 20:10

2 Answers 2

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To be absolutely clear, this duct carries the fan-blown and lint-filtered air coming OUT of the dryer drum. It is NOT the duct carrying the heated air into the drum.

Given that, the upper working temperature of that tape is listed as 200°F. My guess is that this is above the max temperature of the air coming out of the dryer, but I'm not sure. At worst, the adhesive would fail; I doubt you'd have a fire hazard, especially since the environmental lint, which would be far more flammable, isn't expected to burn.

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  • Hello, thank you. Yes, I only mean to seal the exhaust duct that carries air out of the house. I would not touch any incoming parts near the heating element; that seems dangerous.
    – culix
    Jan 18, 2021 at 3:47
  • Glad to help. If you think this answers your question, feel free to accept it. (Or not; that's your call.)
    – Daniel Griscom
    Jan 18, 2021 at 13:42
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I have what appears to be the same dryer. I just did the same thing. Replaced a belt about 5 months ago. It was full of lint all inside the dryer. There were spots of burnt lint in the heating element. Cleaned it well. Check that the duct was flowing well. It was. Thermal fuse blew last week. Opened it up. Full of lint again. More burnt lint in the element. Cleaned again and Wrapped much of the joints with Nashua foil tape. Will keep an eye on it. If there is more build up I’ll get a different dryer. Now it looks like it is ready for outer space.

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    Feb 27, 2022 at 2:24

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