The recent tragedy that happened to the Berkeley East-Bay Humane Society is resonating throughout the animal shelter world. On May 20 the BEBHS suffered the loss of half their facility in a mid-night fire. Also lost were over a dozen cats that were up for adoption. The suspected origin of the fire was the shelter’s dryer.
Closing the shelter pending repairs and the need to evacuate the surviving animals is a shelter manager’s worst nightmare and the loss of life makes it especially emotional for the staff and volunteers who work there. Being a private, non-profit agency puts the burden of the bill squarely on the public in terms of needing donations in order to rebuild.
Coincidentally, earlier that week, one of our shelter dryers caught fire. But it was during the day when staff was there to quickly catch it and put it out. Chalking it up to an old machine, we ordered a new set and didn’t really think more about it. When this incident in Berkeley happened we changed our protocol about running the dryers after hours - it was our practice to throw one last load in to dry before we left for the night - and congratulated ourselves on having two fairly new dryers in good working order.
Little did we know that we had done nothing to address the bigger problem.
Right after news of the fire was released, we received a call from Rhonda Nole, owner of the Dryer Vent Wizard. A self-proclaimed animal lover, Rhonda was shaken by the disaster in Berkeley and wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen in her county. She offered us a free inspection of our dryer vents so she could be assured our building was safe. I was very grateful but explained that we had two new units so it would be a waste of her time. She insisted and said there would be no charge if she could just come out to look. How could I refuse an offer like that!
When Rhonda came she immediately noticed our new dryer was running very hot (on the exterior - not normal) and there was water dripping from the exhaust vent. I’m sure that when we noticed it, we would have assumed there was an installation problem but she said that was not the issue. What she guessed had actually caused the initial fire was the fact the vent from the wall to the ceiling where the machine vented out of the building was blocked and without airflow the heat and moisture was backing up.
A climb up on the roof confirmed the fact that neither vent had any airflow at all. We were a disaster waiting to happen!
I thought we were doing what was needed by insisting the lint screens were cleaned after each load (with all the fur, dust, and litter at the shelter you can imagine how full they become) and having Public Works out on a regular basis to clean the machines and vents.
What I didn’t realize was they were only cleaning the vents from the machine to the wall. They didn’t have the equipment to clean the vents inside the walls to the ceiling. Apparently this hadn’t been done since the shelter was built about 15 years ago (even home machines should be professionally cleaned once a year). Not only does this keep the machines safe, but also, they run more efficiently. We were having to cycle loads through two and three times to get things dry. We had the Dryer Wizard do the necessary cleaning and they pulled almost nine pounds of packed lint out of about 13 feet of vent from our roof.
Whew - a local disaster averted and an important lesson learned. When was the last time your dryer vents were cleaned?
