Is There Mold in My Dryer?

Have you smelled something distinctly musty coming from the inside of your dryer lately? You likely know the smell. You have sniffed it in your washer, your bathroom, maybe even in your dishwasher once or twice. It is the smell of mold and mildew, something that can appear anywhere with frequent exposure to water. Your dryer is not one of those appliances you would consider continuously exposed to water, but it really is. Your dryer handles wet clothes just as much as your washer does, but we like to think the high heat makes it immune to mold. It doesn’t.

Over time, particularly if you like to dry your laundry on low or no heat, mold can build up in your dryer. You will find it in the small crevices near the bottom of the drum where the air isn’t circulated as thoroughly. However, the issue is that if you find mold in your dryer, there is almost assuredly more mold in your washer. Mold doesn’t appear easily in a dryer, but transference from your washer makes it more likely. This means if you need to treat mold in your dryer, you need to treat mold in your washer as well.

So how do you remove mold from your appliances? Luckily, removing it from your washer is easy. You simply need to run the longest, hottest load setting with white vinegar instead of detergent. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really work for the dryer. Instead, you will need to get in there with a rag and some white vinegar and start wiping down the interior. You will want to be very thorough and then run a very high dry setting for at least a few minutes. This will quickly dry out those little corners, but high heat alone will not be enough to kill the mold. This is why vinegar is necessary.