What the heck is this secret compartment in my tumble dryer

[toomuchlikemyusername]

I've always thought I was being a sensible grown up by diligently emptying the door filter of my tumble dryer on a regular basis and removing all the fluff so it was good and safe and all that...go me!

Today, with some lockdown time on my hands I was giving it a spring clean and pondered what the flap at the bottom of the dryer was hiding.

I opened it up to discover another large filter which could be slid out. It was covered in a layer of damp, dusty grot with added slime around the seal for good measure

It's now had a good clean out. I've discovered £1.01, a zip attachment and a false finger nail (thanks Dd).

I've also spotted a neat little diagram that tells me I should have been cleaning this out once a month.

I now feel a bit that it's taken me about 3 years to find this grot spot. (But I did enjoy the manky mess). Am I the only person who didn't know about these secret places in tumble dryers. I am agog!

dare I say it ...... 15 years, shocking (runs away in shame)

I've just found mine too!😱😩

Golden I will look for flaps tomorrow and deal with them appropriately if found. Damp, cruddy flaps are not a welcome feature

Marty thank goodness you came to this thread. My 3 years-to-discovery makes me looks like I positively sat down and read the instruction manual on the day I took delivery of the machine

Oooo. I have a condenser dryer. Never noticed anything that needs cleaning. I empty the filter thing just under the door whenever the light comes on.
I'll go and investigate when I can be bothered to move

I've got a heat pump dryer and the best I can do is lie on the floor and go at it with a cocktail stick. I can't reach very far in and it's becoming steadily more useless. The time it goes between e60 errors is getting shorter and shorter and I'm running out of plus plus settings to try to get tings dry.

Considering replacing it with an ordinary condenser dryer, when the time comes. I've had it all of 3.5 years.

OP you really scared me then. Our vented dryer has been slowly giving up the ghost for a few months now. I have always cleaned the fluff filter just inside the door each month, but the filter light keeps coming on and stopping the machine before stuff is dry.

I looked up possible faults, ordered a new heating element and changed it myself , which improved things for a while but now it's back to its old tricks. So I ordered a new heat pump tumble dryer yesterday.

Read your post and vaguely remembered this extra filter thing, and thought I may have just wasted a huge amount of money! But phew, must have had one on our old dryer. Nothing on this one and nothing in manual either!

@LittleCabbage
Vented driers don't have them only condenser driers. You are safe !

On my parents’ dishwasher, it had the lights to tell you when it needed salt or rinse aid. If one of these was on, together with the power light, the dishwasher looked like a monster face: the lights looked were the eyes, and the buttons in the middle looked like teeth. My dad would draw a little note to reflect this, demanding “whoever empties the dishwasher, feed it salt!”

Jesus OP I have just found a school sock in mine! No one has been to school since March no wonder it was taking forever to dry things. Thank you so much 😂🤣

Ginger. Depending on the age of your children you may well be needing that soon! Just as well you checked otherwise you'd be returning a one socked child and you'd be the talk of the school 😂

Well too, my dryer filter is sparkling now took quite a while to clean as the filter bit is all metal.

Heavy duty tools were used, a breadknife, washing up brush, hoover and a lot of water, inside the machine all done as well with the positioning of a torch, no other items were found!

Switched it on and now make a sound like a 747 coming into land with the flow of air coming out!

Thanks to you I have a vastly improved machine..

Am I the only one who has cleaned this regularly for the last 10 years?

First week of the month is tumble dryer filter and dishwasher filter.

Tumble dryer filter, put one sheet of kitchen roll into the sink, my filter just about fits under the tap so I blast it with that, I do have to turn it to get both sides (4 vent slots) but it does say you can use a shower hose too. Or you can use a jug of water to pour over it.

Shake out the filter and put it back into the tumble dryer immediately. It does not need to be dry, it is used to hot humid air going through it. The kitchen towel can be folded over to catch all the fluff crap, squeeze out the water and put into the bin. No clogging the drain.

Must have a look tomorrow. I don’t empty the fluff either

Wow @chunkyriverfish I can’t imagine having set weeks of the month to do certain jobs! How organised.

Having been and investigated my dryer I realised I knew that the filter was there. I vaguely remember cleaning it when it was new as per the instructions. Clearly I forgot about it

@chunkyriverfish are you me?! I do exactly the same with both tumble & dishwasher filters - an alarm goes off in my organiser in the first week of the month to remind me! (Lint filter is emptied after every cycle, because it's cleaner & more accessible & the machine doesn't work properly when it's full)

OP this thread & your posts have really made me smile 😀

Oookkaayy.
I used the water that's collected in the dryer to clean out the filter. Stick it on a step, clean out as much as I can by hand and then lob 5 litres of warm water through it. If that doesn't work then a big jug full of water. But that usually works.

Blast it under the shower as others have said. And don't forget the other 3 filters and dust box.

Ahhhh we had one of those on our old tumble dryer that I had to take out and scrape all the fluff/hair/grit out of with a knife and tip it up to pour excess water out of before the tumble dryer would work again (if I let the reservoir fill up too much)

I've just been to investigate my tumble dryer. I too have a filter I knew nothing about! No wonder it's not drying anything properly. I'm quite excited to have a task for the morning. I'm also really looking forward to seeing how much stuff comes out.

I unclogged all the sinks last week by taking the U bend apart - there was a whole heap of shit in there. Very satisfying after though.

God 4 pages about cleaning tumble dryers on a Saturday night who knew it could be so exciting

I (used to) rinse mine under the tap but it's difficult due to the size of it, the engineer that came round to modify my tumble dryer in the recall suggested putting the garden hose on it. The shower is a good idea as well, wish I'd thought of either of those options myself years ago!

The fluff filter near the door I clean after every load, but I don't use our tumble dryer very often. Yeah, our Saturday nights rock!

Dislocated blame Covid. If it wasn't for lockdown, I would have been at work, busily working away and the filter would have been unexplored and this thread unwritten. This is the sort of nonsense that happens when I'm not allowed out of the house for any length of time.

Tony unscrewing U bends to clean them out? I find that idea compelling and yet dangerous and disgusting. I will need to think that one over for a while before deciding if the thrills outweigh the potential for water going all of the place and breaking something.

Time. Three filters and a dustbox? I think you might be here on a wind up, but just incase you're not where are they please?

Marty. Well done on turning your machine into a 747 simulator thanks to fluff removal. I hope your neighbours are equally impressed with your efforts

Chunky and MrsCalypso you both sound very organised indeed with your cleaning schedules and alarms to remind you. What do you have scheduled for week 2,3 and 4? I'm looking for opportunities to de-slatern myself here.

I do have a reminder in my phone calendar to do an electricity and gas reading every month, which I promptly ignore, but at least I have a readily available excuse if I don't want to accept an invitation on 1 June 2037...

@lovinglavidaloca

Wow @chunkyriverfish I can’t imagine having set weeks of the month to do certain jobs! How organised.

I even have a laundry schedule it means I do all the housework in the week and have no laundry at the weekends. Plus I do one day of bedding and towels so no folding and putting away clothing. It is bliss! But I am a SAHM with two teenagers so I have a lot of time to do this all very leisurely.

I follow the organised Mum method which is really methodical and means toaster tray crumbs are emptied every week and I clean out cutlery drawers too.