"Ducts Need To Be Respected. They're the Lungs of the Building."

Feb. 17, 2016 — A shareholder in a co-op had his dryer vent cleaned after 10 years and was shocked to discover how much lint had backed up. It led him to ask: who’s responsible for cleaning such potentially dangerous blockage, the shareholder or the co-op?
“Ten years is definitely dangerous,” Howard Lupowitz, owner of Brooklyn-based Air Vent Medics, tells the Ask Real Estate column in the New York Times. “It’s definitely a fire hazard.”

Dryer vents should be cleaned at least once or twice a year, depending on how frequently you use the dryer and the length of the vent, says Maria Vizzi, an owner of Indoor Environmental Solutions in the Bronx. “Ducts need to be respected,” Vizzi tells Habitat, adding that her technicians use miniature video cameras to pinpoint obstructions hundreds of feet deep in HVAC ducts and dryer ventilators. “(Ducts) are the lungs of the building, and if there’s a blockage it’s going to impact the airflow and create these types of quality-of-life issues.”

City codes require that dryer vents be cleaned, but don’t specify how often. To determine who should pay for the work, consult your building’s governing documents, advises real estate lawyer Leni Morrison Cummins.