Most of the town’s houses are young: about six in ten date from 2000 or later, the typical owner’s house from 2007. In a Town Center, Keena or Loudoun West house the washer and dryer often sit on the bedroom floor, which sends the dryer vent line on a long trip, sideways between the joists and then out a gable end or through the roofline. Every elbow on that route is a spot where lint stops and stacks up.
Winter is where this town is hard on a dryer vent. The Purcellville co-op, the nearest long-term weather station, logs a low of 32 degrees or colder on about 115 nights in an average year. Dryer exhaust is warm and wet, and when it meets a hood that cold, damp lint can cling to the flap and frost can hold it partly open or partly shut. A half-packed line moves air slower, which leaves more moisture at the end to freeze.
Snow is the other test. An observer about two miles east-northeast of town measured 30 inches in February 2010, and the January 2016 blizzard dropped 30 to 36 inches across western Loudoun. A hood mounted low on a wall vanishes under that. After a big snow, dig the hood out before the next load, and if it’s on the roof, leave the dryer off and call us rather than climbing. A propane dryer also sends its burner exhaust out that same line, one more reason never to run it blocked.
Old Town runs the other way. The National Register nomination for the historic district puts most of its buildings between 1880 and 1930, decades before clothes dryers were common, so the laundry landed wherever it fit later: a basement, a back addition, a closed-in porch. Those runs are short, and the usual culprit is right behind the dryer, a foil accordion hose pinched flat when the machine got pushed back.