Venting Electric Dryer Into Attic

The problem with attics.

Venting electric dryer into attic.

Venting the dryer outside in cold weather wastes a lot of heat. But we don t recommend it for two reasons. Every electric dryer has to have an outlet through which it expels warm moist air or it won t work. Not all dryers will allow for this so be sure to check the owners manual to ensure it can be vented in this manner.

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. When a dryer is in. Sometimes such as in town homes or condos it s not possible to vent a dryer through a wall outside. In these cases it may be necessary to vent your dryer through the attic.

A dryer vent should be vented outside. Dryer lint is also highly flammable. 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. 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.

The attic is usually colder than the rest of the house during the winter and that can create a problem for a dryer vent. 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.