Dryer Vent Inspection in San Jose, CA

What a dryer vent inspection actually involves

We start at the appliance. The dryer gets pulled out. The transition duct behind it comes off first. That piece tells us a lot. Vinyl and foil transition duct still sits in plenty of pre-1980 San Jose homes, and it gets replaced with rigid or UL-listed semi-rigid metal. Then a camera goes up the line. We count elbows and measure run length. We look for crushed sections behind the wall.

Next we go outside. The hood matters more than people think. Bird-screened hoods on short garage runs mat lint behind the mesh. Roof jacks on second-floor laundry rooms collect nesting material, especially in foothill and orchard-edge neighborhoods. We check whether the damper swings freely.

Then we measure airflow and compare it against the run. A 3 to 8 foot sidewall run should move air hard. A 20 to 35 foot roof run with four elbows will not, and that is normal. Booster-fan homes get the fan checked separately. A dead booster usually means a fully packed line above it.

Some layouts limit what an inspection can see. Eichler and flat-roof mid-century homes hide duct inside soffits or post-and-beam walls. Condo stacks share a chase. In those cases we say what was reachable and what was not.