Hit 500 dryer vent cleanings and only found 3 lint fires so far

I've been tracking every job since I went solo back in 2019. This morning I hit number 500, which is a weird milestone to care about, but I've got a whole spreadsheet of notes. Out of all those, I only pulled actual lint fires from 3 machines, but two of those were in the same apartment complex in Tulsa. The other one was a restaurant that had a commercial dryer, and that one was bad, the vent was packed solid for maybe 8 feet. It made me wonder, are we catching most of these before they get that far, or are people just lucky? How many of you keep a count or a log of your calls? Have you ever found a situation that made you think about quitting the job right there?

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julia_patel19d ago

Huh, only 3 out of 500? That actually makes me wonder if most of these "lint fires" are even real fires or just people overreacting to some dust. I mean, lint is flammable, sure, but it takes a lot of heat to actually catch, and most dryers shut off before they get that hot. Plus, the fact that two were in the same complex sounds like a fluke or maybe bad installs, not a widespread danger. I'd bet the real number is closer to zero if you checked for actual flames versus just scorched lint. Not saying your job isn't useful, but 500 jobs and 3 fires is like a 0.6% rate, which is basically nothing in my book. Are we sure we're not just scaring people into paying for cleanings they don't need?