My dryer vent goes from the second story to the roof. The problem is that I can't reach the roof. I bought one of those dryer vent cleaners that you can put on your drill and spin it up the vent. Currently it goes 8 feet. Could I buy another one and go up 16 feet and just push or pull the excess lint all the way from the roof top or is it better to have someone do it from the roof. Also, are there other things a professional will do besides use a long brush?
Clean a second story dryer vent that goes out the roof from the inside
dryervent
Related Solutions
I would not do this for exactly the reasons you've asked about:
1) By sharing the bathroom vent pipe, you're ensuring that at least half the gunk that's being spewed onto your porch is going to be spewed into your bathroom unless you can find and install some kind of one-way flapper between the new "Y" fitting and the bathroom. If you do find and install such a thing, it's going to be difficult to keep clean and operational.
2) I'm assuming since you say "first floor" that you also have a second floor, in which case that's a long way to go to get up to the roof. It's not such a big deal for the bathroom fan to vent up there, but that's a long way for lint from the dryer to be carried, and it's going to be more likely to collect on the walls of the pipe over that long distance.
Do you have a crawlspace or basement that you could run a new pipe through?
They sell inline lint traps, that can be installed along the exhaust vent.
This should catch most; if not all of the excess lint, and give you a convenient easy way to clean the lint. The lint should be cleaned often (along with the dryers internal lint trap), to increase dryer efficiency and decrease the chance of fire.
Keep in mind, these are recommended to be used with a "booster fan" setup. If your exhaust line is longer than about 6' (1.8 m), you'll have to install a dryer booster fan to safely use one of these lint traps.
If you have a gas dryer, you may not be able to use an inline lint trap. Check with the manufacturer of the dryer, before installing a lint trap like this.
Warning
They sell products like this that have an open front, that "deflect" heat into the house. These are not a good idea, since they also "deflect" moisture into the home which can lead to mold and poor indoor air quality.
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Best Answer
My experience using those brushes is that it's difficult to tell if you're pushing on a lint blockage, a turn in the pipe, or your knocking the cap off the end of the pipe. So if at all possible, you should have the end open and/or connected to a vacuum. You don't want this tool ramming into the motor in your dryer, nor do you want it knocking the damper off the outside of your house. In your case, that's going to require someone on the roof.
You can get close, keeping track of how many segments of the cleaning tool you used to get to the roof in a previous cleaning, and then stop a few feet early. But as Michael says, the cap itself should be cleaned since lots of lint will build up there.