Quick AnswerExpect $80 to $185 for a standard dryer vent cleaning. Angi puts the 2026 national average at $145 and Fixr at $150. Roof-terminating vents run $150 to $300; bird nest removal adds $120 to $400. Typical US ranges, not a quote.
How Much Does Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost?
Most homeowners pay $80 to $185 for a standard dryer vent cleaning. Angi puts the 2026 national average at $145 with a full span of $75 to $340, and Fixr reports an average near $150. Roof vents sit at the top. Typical US ranges, not a quote.
What makes this cost easy to research is that the published figures agree. Across five national cost publishers the stated average lands between $129 and $150 — a spread of about $20 on a job that takes most crews 30 to 60 minutes. Compare that with chimney inspection pricing, where the published averages differ by hundreds of dollars because the publishers are quietly describing different jobs.
The agreement holds because a dryer vent cleaning is one defined task: clear the duct from the dryer connection to the exterior termination, and verify airflow afterwards. There is no equivalent of a Level 1 versus Level 3 distinction. Almost all of the price variation that does exist comes from where the vent terminates and how long the duct run is.
What Is the Average Cost of Dryer Vent Cleaning?
The average cost of dryer vent cleaning is about $130 to $150 nationally. Thumbtack reports $129, HomeGuide $130, Bob Vila $139, Angi $145 and Fixr $150. The useful working range is $80 to $185, which is where most single-visit jobs land.
Treat the average and the range as answering two different questions. The average tells you what a typical household in a typical house pays and is the right number for budgeting. The range tells you whether a quote you have been given is reasonable, and that depends almost entirely on your vent, not on the national picture.
One figure worth noting: the lowest credible number any of these publishers reports is $60, from HomeGuide. Nothing below that appears in national data. That matters later, when we get to advertised $49 specials.
| Source | Stated average | Typical range | Full span reported | Data date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angi | $145 | $80–$185 | $75–$340 | July 2026 |
| Fixr | $150 | $100–$200 | $80–$350 | January 2025 |
| Bob Vila | $139 | $102–$179 | Not stated | April 2024 |
| HomeGuide | $130 | $80–$185 | $60–$275 | April 2024 |
| Thumbtack | $129 | $114–$152 | Not stated | Undated |
Angi is the most recent of the five and also reports the widest span, because its high figure folds in roof access and nest removal rather than quoting them separately. Thumbtack's range is the narrowest because it is built from booked job prices rather than from estimates.
How Much Does Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost by Vent Location?
Where the duct terminates is the single biggest price factor. A basement or ground-floor vent costs $80 to $175, a second-floor vent $110 to $200, and a roof vent $150 to $300. The publishers agree on the direction and nearly agree on the figures, which is rare.
The reason is labour, not lint. A ground-floor side-wall vent is a short duct a technician can reach standing up, from both ends. A roof termination means ladder work, fall protection, and usually a longer vertical run that holds more lint and takes more passes to clear. A second-floor side-wall vent sits in between.
This is also why a quote given over the phone before anyone has seen your vent is provisional. The honest version of that call ends with a question about where the vent comes out, not with a flat number.
| Vent location | Angi (Jul 2026) | HomeGuide | Fixr |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basement or first floor | $80–$150 | $80–$150 | $100–$175 |
| Second floor | $110–$185 | $110–$185 | $125–$200 |
| Roof termination | $150–$250 | $150–$250 | $150–$300 |
Is Dryer Vent Cleaning Priced by the Foot?
Usually no — most companies quote a flat price for the visit. Fixr is the one publisher that reports per-unit pricing, at $6 to $11 per foot or $90 to $160 per hour where a company works that way. Fixr also separates labour at $65 to $150 from the total job at $80 to $175.
Per-foot pricing surfaces mainly on unusually long runs. The 2021 International Residential Code caps a dryer exhaust duct at 35 feet of developed length, minus 5 feet for every 90-degree elbow and 2 feet 6 inches for every 45. A duct near that limit is a materially bigger job than a six-foot run through a basement wall, and some companies price it accordingly.
If you are quoted by the foot, ask for the total before work starts. A per-foot rate on a duct whose length nobody has measured is an open-ended number, and the flat-rate alternative is widely available at the figures above.
What Does a Dryer Vent Cleaning Service Cost Include?
A standard $80 to $185 dryer vent cleaning should include pulling the dryer out, disconnecting the transition duct, brushing and vacuuming the full duct run from both ends, clearing the exterior termination and hood, reconnecting the dryer, and confirming airflow. HomeGuide puts the job at 30 to 60 minutes.
What is often not included: a written inspection report, repair of damaged duct, removal of a bird nest, or anything involving the lint trap housing beyond a vacuum. Those are priced separately by most companies, and the ranges are in the add-on table below.
Two inclusions are worth asking about explicitly, because they separate a real cleaning from a quick vacuum at the wall. The first is whether the dryer is physically moved — the first few feet behind the appliance hold a disproportionate share of the lint. The second is whether the exterior hood and its backdraft damper are cleaned and left operating, since a damper stuck shut by lint undoes the rest of the work.
How Much Does Stanley Steemer Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost?
Stanley Steemer publishes no price. Its own dryer vent cleaning page asks you to call or enter a zip code for a quote, with no rate or range shown. Third-party cost guides report its work at $50 to $175: Fixr cites $75 to $175 and HomeGuide $50 to $150. Those are reported figures, not advertised rates.
The same applies to the other national brands people search for. Fixr and HomeGuide between them report Dryer Vent Wizard at $60 to $250, Sears at $90 to $225, and COIT at $140 to $250. None of these companies publishes a national flat rate, because the price depends on the vent in your house.
The practical use of brand pricing data is as a sanity check, not a shopping list. If a local quote falls inside the $80 to $185 national band and the scope matches what is described above, the brand on the van is not what determines whether it is fair.
| Company | Fixr reports | HomeGuide reports | Published by the company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stanley Steemer | $75–$175 | $50–$150 | No price published |
| Dryer Vent Wizard | $100–$250 | $60–$240 | No price published |
| Sears | $125–$225 | $90–$190 | No price published |
| COIT | $150–$250 | $140–$160 | No price published |
How Much Does Bird Nest Removal and Other Add-On Work Cost?
Removing a bird nest, fur or droppings from a dryer vent costs $120 to $400 depending on the publisher: Angi and HomeGuide both report $120 to $250, Fixr $150 to $400. Angi prices a combined cleaning and nest removal visit at $195 to $550. A guard to prevent a repeat costs $30 to $100.
Nests are common because a dryer vent is a warm, sheltered cavity with an opening sized for exactly the sort of bird that wants one. The relevant detail for cost is that a nest is usually discovered mid-visit rather than quoted in advance, so it is worth asking what happens to the price if one is found before the technician starts.
The other add-ons are optional and worth understanding before being offered them. A booster fan at $150 to $400 solves a genuinely over-long duct run; a lint alert monitor at $150 to $250 tells you when airflow is dropping; disinfectant fogging at $50 to $100 does nothing for fire risk and is a comfort purchase.
| Add-on or related work | Typical cost | Reported by |
|---|---|---|
| Bird or pest nest removal | $120–$400 | Angi, HomeGuide, Fixr |
| Cleaning plus nest removal, combined visit | $195–$550 | Angi |
| Bird guard or vent cover | $30–$100 | Angi, HomeGuide, Fixr |
| Dryer vent inspection only | $30–$60 | Angi, HomeGuide, Fixr |
| Lint alert monitoring system | $150–$250 | Angi, HomeGuide, Fixr |
| Vent booster fan | $150–$400 | Angi |
| Disinfectant fogging | $50–$100 | Angi, HomeGuide, Fixr |
| Dryer vent plus air duct cleaning bundle | $340–$800 | Angi, HomeGuide |
| Air duct cleaning alone | $270–$490 | Angi, Bob Vila |
How Much Does It Cost to Repair or Replace a Dryer Vent?
A repair to existing duct runs $75 to $150, and rerouting or installing a new vent $200 to $500. Full replacement is where the figures scatter: Angi reports $80 to $1,000 for a damaged vent and $140 to $600 as the typical replacement, while Thumbtack's booked-job data puts replacement at $323 to $1,011.
The gap is explained by what counts as a replacement. Swapping a crushed flexible transition duct behind the dryer for rigid metal is an hour's work and parts. Rerouting a duct through a finished ceiling to shorten a run that was never code-compliant is a different job involving drywall, and it lands at the top of Thumbtack's range.
Replacement is worth pricing when cleaning keeps failing. A vent that clogs within a few months of a professional cleaning is usually telling you the duct is too long, has too many elbows, is flexible foil where it should be rigid metal, or slopes so that moisture collects. Cleaning that duct annually is paying $80 to $185 a year to manage a problem that $200 to $500 would end.
What Changes the Price of a Dryer Vent Cleaning?
Six things move the number: where the vent terminates, how long the duct run is, how many elbows it has, what the duct is made of, whether anything is nesting in it, and whether the dryer is gas or electric. Location and length together explain most of the spread between $80 and $340.
Gas dryers deserve a note. Disconnecting and reconnecting a gas dryer involves a fuel line, and companies handle that differently — some will not move the appliance at all, some charge for it, some include it. It rarely changes the headline price much, but it changes what you get for it, so confirm it when you book a gas dryer.
Severity also matters more than people expect. Fixr prices a routine clog at $100 to $200 but wet, packed lint at $100 to $300, because saturated lint has to be broken up rather than brushed out. A vent that has gone years without attention is a different job from one cleaned last winter, and the same company will quote it differently.
Why Does Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost Near Me Differ From the National Average?
Local price differences come mostly from labour rates and housing stock, not from demand. Fixr's hourly band of $90 to $160 covers most of the variation: the same 45-minute job costs meaningfully more in a high-labour-cost metro. Housing age and layout do the rest.
Housing stock is the underrated factor. A metro dominated by single-storey homes with short side-wall vents will show a lower local average than one full of two- and three-storey houses with roof terminations — not because the companies charge differently, but because the typical job is genuinely different work.
What this means practically is that comparing a local quote against the $80 to $185 national band is a reasonable first check, but a quote above it is not automatically high. Ask what the price would be for a ground-floor side-wall vent in the same market. If the answer is well inside the national range, your vent, not the company, is what moved the number.
Does DIY Dryer Vent Cleaning Actually Save Money?
Yes, on the first visit, and more after that. A rod-and-brush kit costs $15 to $70 against $80 to $185 for a professional cleaning, so the first DIY attempt saves roughly $65 to $115 and the kit is reusable. The saving is real for short, accessible, ground-floor duct runs.
It stops being a saving in four cases: a roof termination, where the job now involves a ladder and a roof; a duct run long enough to need a drill-driven rotary kit you do not own; a gas dryer you would have to disconnect; and any vent you cannot see the far end of. In those cases the DIY route either fails to clear the duct or trades money for a genuine fall risk.
A reasonable middle path is to do the accessible part yourself and buy the inspection rather than the cleaning. At $30 to $60, a vent inspection is the cheapest line item any of these publishers report, and it answers the only question that matters: is the duct actually clear.
| DIY | Professional | |
|---|---|---|
| First-visit cost | $15–$70 for a kit | $80–$185 |
| Cost per later visit | $0 | $80–$185 |
| Time | 1–2 hours first time | 30–60 minutes |
| Ground-floor side-wall vent | Works well | Works well |
| Roof termination | Ladder and roof work — not advised | Routine, $150–$300 |
| Long run or several elbows | Needs a rotary drill kit | Routine |
| Gas dryer | Fuel line disconnection | Handled, confirm when booking |
| Bird nest present | Usually beyond a kit | $120–$400 |
| Verified airflow afterwards | By observation only | Measured or tested |
Is a $49 or $69 Dryer Vent Cleaning Special Worth It?
Approach it carefully. The lowest figure in any national data set is about $60, from HomeGuide, and the typical floor is $75 to $80. A price below that is not impossible, but it usually describes a vacuum at the wall opening rather than a cleaning of the full duct run from both ends.
The failure mode is not that the advertised price is a lie. It is that the advertised price covers a scope you would not have chosen, and the real job is quoted once the technician is in your laundry room. That is a worse negotiating position than booking a known flat rate.
Three questions settle it before anyone arrives. How many feet of duct does this price cover? Is the dryer pulled out and the duct disconnected, or is it vacuumed in place? And what is the price if a blockage or a nest is found? A company that answers all three in writing at $49 is offering a genuine loss leader. One that will not is selling an appointment, not a cleaning.
How Often Should You Pay for Dryer Vent Cleaning?
Once a year for a typical household, which puts the running cost at roughly $80 to $185 a year, or about $7 to $15 a month. Households that run several loads a day, dry pet bedding, or have a duct run near the code length limit generally need two visits a year.
Annual is the cadence the trade settles on rather than a figure fixed by code. The 2021 IRC governs how a dryer exhaust duct is built — 4-inch nominal diameter, smooth rigid metal, a 35-foot developed-length cap with deductions for elbows, termination at least 3 feet from any opening, a backdraft damper, and no screen — but it does not set a cleaning interval.
If your vent needs clearing more than twice a year, read that as a diagnosis rather than a schedule. Something about the duct is wrong, and the add-on and replacement figures above are usually cheaper over three years than repeat cleanings.
Is Dryer Vent Cleaning Worth the Cost?
The fire arithmetic says yes. The US Fire Administration records 2,900 residential clothes dryer fires a year causing 5 deaths, 100 injuries and $35 million in property loss — an average of roughly $12,000 per fire, against $80 to $185 for a cleaning.
The cause data is what makes the comparison fair rather than scaremongering. Failure to clean is the leading factor contributing to ignition in those fires at 34 percent — not a faulty appliance, not wiring, but accumulated lint. Separately, NFPA data attributes 29 percent of home dryer and washer fires to the same cause, with dust, fibre or lint the item first ignited in 27 percent of dryer fires.
Two more figures are worth knowing. 82.6 percent of these fires start in the laundry area, and incidence peaks in January at 11 percent — the month when dryers run hardest and windows stay shut. Booking a cleaning in autumn costs the same as booking one in spring and lands ahead of the peak.
Does Cleaning a Dryer Vent Lower Your Energy Bill?
Probably, but no authoritative source quantifies it, and we are not going to invent a figure. A restricted duct makes a dryer run longer to do the same work, which uses more energy. The widely repeated claims of specific percentage savings trace back to vendor marketing, not to measured data.
What can be said honestly is directional. If your clothes now need two cycles where they used to need one, you are already paying for the restriction in energy, and clearing it removes that cost. If your drying times have not changed, the energy case for a cleaning is weak and the fire case is the reason to book it.
Treat any company that leads with a precise energy saving as making a marketing claim. The defensible argument for dryer vent cleaning is the ignition statistic above, and it is strong enough on its own.
Dryer Vent Cleaning From Your Local Team
If you are in or around Nashville, Cincinnati, Cleveland or Minneapolis, our technicians clean the full duct run from both ends, clear the exterior hood and damper, and quote a flat fee in writing before starting — including what the price becomes if a nest or a damaged duct turns up. Choose your city below for local details and booking.
Nashville, TN · Cincinnati, OH · Cleveland, OH · Minneapolis, MN
FAQs
Most homeowners pay $80 to $185 for a standard dryer vent cleaning. Angi puts the 2026 national average at $145 with a full span of $75 to $340; Fixr reports an average near $150 and Bob Vila near $139. Roof-terminating vents sit at the top of the range. These are typical US ranges, not a quote.
Five national cost publishers put the average between $129 and $150. Thumbtack reports $129, HomeGuide $130, Bob Vila $139, Angi $145 and Fixr $150. The tight clustering is unusual for a home service and means the average here is genuinely useful, unlike chimney work where levels of service differ hugely.
Stanley Steemer does not publish a price. Its own service page directs you to call or enter a zip code for a quote. Third-party cost guides report its dryer vent work in the $50 to $175 range, with Fixr citing $75 to $175 and HomeGuide $50 to $150. Treat those as reported ranges, not advertised rates.
Roof-terminating dryer vents run $150 to $250 according to both Angi and HomeGuide, and $150 to $300 according to Fixr. The premium pays for ladder or roof access, fall protection and the extra duct length that a roof run usually involves. It is the single biggest location-driven price difference.
Budget $120 to $400 on top of or instead of a standard cleaning. Angi and HomeGuide both report $120 to $250 for removing nests, fur and droppings, while Fixr quotes $150 to $400. Angi separately prices a combined cleaning plus nest removal visit at $195 to $550. A bird guard afterwards costs $30 to $100.
On the first visit, yes. A rod-and-brush kit costs $15 to $70 and a professional cleaning $80 to $185, so DIY saves roughly $65 to $115 the first time and more after that. The saving disappears for roof vents, long duct runs, gas dryers you would have to disconnect, and any vent you cannot reach safely.
Once a year for a typical household, which makes the running cost roughly $80 to $185 a year. Large households, long duct runs and homes that dry pet bedding often need two visits. A vent that clogs within months is usually telling you the duct itself is wrong, and rerouting it at $200 to $500 ends the recurring bill.
Be careful. The lowest credible national figure any publisher reports is about $60, so a $49 advertised price generally covers a vacuum at the wall opening rather than the full duct run. Ask what length of duct is cleaned, whether the dryer is pulled out, and what the price becomes if a blockage is found.
Sources and Standards Cited
Every dollar figure on this page is a published national range from the cost sources below, with the publisher and its data date named inline. They are typical US ranges, not our quotes. Fire statistics are from the US Fire Administration and NFPA; duct construction requirements are from the 2021 International Residential Code.
- US Fire Administration, Clothes Dryer Fires in Residential Buildings (2008–2010) — 2,900 fires, 5 deaths, 100 injuries, $35 million loss per year; failure to clean the leading factor at 34 percent; 82.6 percent originate in the laundry area; January peak at 11 percent.
- NFPA, Clothes Dryer and Washing Machine fire fact sheet — 17,700 reported home structure fires involving dryers or washers, $194 million in direct damage; failure to clean 29 percent; dust, fibre or lint the item first ignited in 27 percent of dryer fires; dryers 92 percent of these fires.
- 2021 International Residential Code, Chapter 15, Exhaust Systems — dryer exhaust duct diameter, smooth rigid metal requirement, 35-foot developed-length limit with elbow deductions, termination clearance, backdraft damper, screen prohibition.
- Chimney Safety Institute of America, Certified Dryer Exhaust Technician — the trade certification to ask for when hiring.
- Angi, How Much Does Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost, updated July 2026 — national average $145, span $75 to $340, cost by vent location, pest removal, booster fan, bundle and replacement figures.
- Fixr, Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost, January 2025 — average $150, range $100 to $200, $6 to $11 per foot, $90 to $160 per hour, cost by location, clog and wet-lint figures, reported brand prices.
- HomeGuide, Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost — average $130, typical $80 to $185, full span $60 to $275, 30 to 60 minute job duration, DIY kit $15 to $50, reported brand prices.
- Bob Vila, Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost — national average $139, typical range $102 to $179, labour $65 to $150, repair and installation figures.
- Thumbtack, Dryer Vent Cleaning Cost — national average $129 from booked job prices, range $114 to $152, dryer vent replacement $323 to $1,011.
- Stanley Steemer, Dryer Vent Cleaning service page — checked October 2026; no price, rate or range is published, and the page directs customers to request a quote.