We are very prone to blindly trusting and taking for granted all kinds of modern amenities and conveniences without considering whether more thought should be given to them. Home appliances of all kinds, and the electric or gas utilities that power them, are at the top of the list. We treat them as fully tame — even benign — draft animals that do our bidding without issue. But therein lies the danger: we usually don't fully understand how things really work, or the risks they pose.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, every year there are 15,000 to 16,000 fires in homes caused by washing machines and dryers. Of that total, more than 90% involve clothes dryers, and more than 50% of those were caused directly by dust, fiber, and lint accumulations within the machines, ducting, vents, or the clothes themselves. It turns out that lint burns readily and burns well. Also, we’re kind of lazy.
Translation: people fail to perform the routine basic maintenance specified by appliance manufacturers, or they casually and routinely violate safety protocols — overloading the machine, for example, or drying clothes that have absorbed flammable products such as petroleum-based lubricants, fuels, paint thinners, grease, solvents, or even plant-derived cooking oils. And before you even get to that point, dryer vent systems are often not designed and installed properly in the first place. Why? The perception that doing it right costs too much, is too difficult, or both.
Step onto any workboat with laundry facilities and you will likely find precisely the same appliances you would expect to see in any home in North America. The ducting and venting are also likely to be done in the same standard, shabby household way. But the average home does not pitch, roll, heave, sway, and yaw as seagoing vessels do — or pound and vibrate intensely. These machines are not designed to handle the additional g-forces from those motions, which are at times quite violent. And the engine room of a working tug is a very tough environment.
But it’s all good, right?
