About Us

Urbana Dryer Vent Cleaning was started in 2017 after there were a string of dryer fires in the Villages of Urbana. I had recently resigned form my job as an operations supervisor at a nearby power plant and was doing odd jobs while I searched for another engineering position. I saw all of the neighborhood chatter on Facebook and saw an opportunity. Well, I eventually figured it out and was blessed to get so many great reviews and referrals that I decided that this would be my full time gig. I am very grateful to all of my customers that trusted me in their home and took time to write reviews and refer their friends and family to me. Thank you!

I was a nuclear trained mechanic in the U.S. Navy for almost 10 years and served on fast attack submarines. On submarines you must learn how to fix everything, even equipment you had never worked on before. You didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t as if you could make a phone call and help would show up! Overcoming those challenges was very rewarding and instilled in me a love for fixing things.  It turns out that dryer vent cleaning frequently poses unique challenges to overcome. I get to troubleshoot and fix dryers and dryer vents. No two jobs are the same and the moment I think I have seen everything, I am confronted with a new challenge. I also have a love for people. I’ve met so many people in the area and have had tons of great conversations and have even made many friends! Getting to meet and help you, while also getting to fix things and be creative has been a dream come true for me. I just wish I didn’t spend so much money on that Nuclear Engineering degree. Life is funny like that.

The biggest revelation I’ve had in this business is that the inside of the dryer can accumulate large amounts of lint and pose a serious fire hazard. When I first started, I read everything I could on dryer vent cleaning. I wanted to be knowledgeable of what I was doing. However, nowhere on the internet was anyone talking about cleaning dryers internally. It was only after taking some dryers apart to help folks with heater problems and burning smells that I realized that this is where the fires actually start! I saw many dryers packed with charred and burnt lint and it became clear to me that this had to be cleaned, as part of a comprehensive dryer vent cleaning service, to ensure your home is truly safe from a dryer fire. It makes no sense to clean the dryer vent but leave a massive fire hazard inside your dryer. Yet this is exactly what the other companies do.

The challenge with cleaning dryers out internally is that there are dozens of dryer models to learn how to disassemble and reassemble. I suspect the reason other companies don’t do this is because it is too difficult to train employees on every possible dryer model and to trust that they will do it right. There is simply too much liability. I don’t have that problem because I have personally trained all of our technicians. We’ve taken apart and cleaned thousands dryers and done countless repairs to them as well, so you can be confident that the job will be done right. You never have to worry about a random technician with limited experience servicing your home.

I say ‘we’ and ‘us’ on this website because I couldn’t do this without the support of my family, this community and of course, God. We have a terrific team right now and I’m looking forward to growing and training some more great people soon.  I value every customer and will always ensure that you get the best service, whether I am there or not. We guarantee and stand by our work.

We also specialize in dryer vents that exit through the roof. These pose unique challenges when trying to clean them. They often have screens installed that get clogged and flaps that get stuck. A dryer vent is dirty and wet. These roof vents are not designed with that in mind. To clean them properly, you must clean the flap and /or screen from the roof or the attic. This is something else that other companies do not do. Please check out our article on dryer vents on the roof to learn more about why they are a problem and what we do to clean them properly.

Please check out the articles we have put together on dryer vent knowledge for everything you need to know about dryer vents. Please leave a comment and share those articles on social media, so your friends and family know how to identify issues with their dryer and dryer vent. The more people that are informed, the more dryer fires we can prevent! 

Also, check out our gallery to see pictures of all the crazy things We’ve come across. Some of those pictures are a pretty compelling testament to why we do what we do.

Thanks for taking the time to read our story. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I look forward to serving you and getting to know you!

 

Cheers,
Dennis Thomas
Owner – Urbana Dryer Vent Cleaning
urbanadvc@gmail.com
240-258-8968