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A job starts at the exterior hood, not the dryer. The tech puts a meter or a hand at the termination and reads what is actually coming out before anything is touched, because that number is the baseline. Then the dryer gets pulled, the transition hose comes off, and a rotary brush on a flexible line goes into the duct, driven by a drill and fed the full length of the run. A HEPA-rated vacuum stays sealed at the open end to catch what the brush breaks loose instead of blowing it into your laundry room. We clean the hood and the flapper from outside, clear the dryer's own lint trap housing and blower area, reconnect with proper clamps, and then read airflow at the hood a second time. You see both numbers. We work behind gas and electric units, stacked units in closets, and pedestal setups, and we handle the vent line itself whether it is rigid metal, semi-rigid, or the old flexible foil that still shows up in a lot of houses here.

What drives the work in Charlotte is geometry and weather. Piedmont NC heat and humidity mean dryers in this area work against ambient moisture for five to six months a year. Cycles run long in July and August even with a clear duct, so homeowners rarely notice gradual lint restriction until it is severe. Winters are mild but see enough 25–35°F nights that warm exhaust condenses inside uninsulated metal duct running through vented crawlspaces, attics, and garages; damp lint packs into a felt layer instead of blowing clear. That felt does not respond to a shop vac at the hood. It takes a brush turning against it. Spring pollen and clay dust get pulled into exterior terminations and bond with lint, and birds nesting in roof and gable caps during March–May is routine across the metro, which is why a chunk of our April calls turn out to be a blocked cap rather than a dirty duct.

Housing era dictates the run. Older close-in bungalows and brick ranches put laundry on an exterior wall or in a back porch/utility room with a short 4–8 ft run straight out, often still on original flexible foil (those clean fast, and the real conversation is usually whether to replace that foil, which is a different job). Post-1990 two-story subdivision homes moved laundry upstairs near bedrooms or into an interior second-floor closet, producing 20–35 ft runs with multiple 90° elbows going up through the attic to a roof cap or gable vent, the worst-case geometry for lint accumulation. Townhomes and condos built through the 2000s boom use stacked interior closets venting through long horizontal chases. Run length, elbow count, and whether we have to get on a roof are what actually move the number on a cleaning; a crushed section, a disconnected joint in the attic, or a damaged cap turns it into repair work and we tell you that before we proceed. And if we read good airflow at the hood and pull back a duct that is clear, we say so and charge you for the look, not a cleaning you did not need.