Dryer Vent Cleaning in San Diego, CA

It can be both, and they compound each other. Damp mornings under the marine layer mean laundry goes in wetter and the air the dryer pulls in is already carrying moisture, so cycles stretch even with a clean vent. The problem is that a stretched cycle is also the first symptom of a restricted duct, so people write off a real blockage as "just June gloom" for a couple of seasons. A fair test: if the run time is still long in September and October when the air dries out, the vent is the issue, not the weather. If you're in a Peninsula or coastal home and the clothes come out warm and damp rather than hot and dry, that points at airflow regardless of the month.

It splits by where you live. On coastal and Peninsula homes, salt air eats the exterior cap — the louvers corrode and stick, either jammed open so the duct fills with debris or jammed shut so the dryer is pushing against a closed flap. We replace a lot of caps out there and it's usually the whole reason the machine slowed down. On canyon-adjacent lots the low sidewall hoods on Craftsman and Spanish Revival bungalows in North Park, Golden Hill, Kensington and South Park sit right where blown leaf litter and dust collect, and a rear service-porch vent a foot or two off the ground packs up fast. In Mira Mesa and Rancho Peñasquitos the two-story tracts vent upstairs laundry through a roof jack, and those fail differently: long vertical lift, lint settling back down the duct, and a screened or bird-blocked jack you can't see from the ground. Clairemont, Serra Mesa and Allied Gardens ranches have the easiest setups — short exterior-wall runs off a garage or hall closet — and there the usual find is a crushed foil transition behind the machine.