Most of what we publish is about Brooklyn, because that is where we live and where the truck spends most of its week. But several days a week the truck crosses into Nassau County, and has for years — Cedarhurst, Lawrence, Woodmere, Hewlett, Inwood, and the streets around them. This is the guide for those homes: what the Five Towns housing stock does to a dryer vent, what we actually do on a visit, what it costs, and how the scheduling works when your house is on a routed day rather than around the corner from us.
We are Vent Pro NYC — family-owned and operated, licensed and insured, run by Eyal Malka and his son. Every visit ends with photos and a written before-and-after airflow report. If you just want a slot, book online or call or text (718) 541-5567. The full Five Towns service page is here.
Why Five Towns homes are different from our Brooklyn work
A big share of our Brooklyn week is apartment work: stackables in closets, brownstone risers, shared shafts, roof terminations four stories up. The Five Towns are the opposite problem. The housing stock is dominated by detached single-family homes — prewar colonials and Tudors in Cedarhurst and Woodmere, capes and splits in Hewlett and Inwood, larger rebuilt and expanded homes in Lawrence — and detached houses fail differently than apartments.
The runs are longer than owners expect. In a detached house the laundry is usually in the basement, and the duct has to travel from the middle of the house to an exterior wall — often the full depth of the house, with an elbow at the ceiling, an elbow at the wall, and sometimes a rise of a story or more. A basement laundry in a deep colonial can put 25 to 40 feet of duct between the dryer and the outside. Every foot of that run is somewhere lint can settle, and every elbow is a collection point.
Renovations and extensions reroute ducts. The Five Towns have seen decades of expansions — dormers, rear extensions, kitchens moved, basements finished. When a renovation moves the laundry or wraps new framing around an old wall, the duct route often gets longer and gains elbows, and nobody documents it. We regularly find runs that made sense for the original house and make no sense for the current one.
Laundry volume is heavy. Many Five Towns households run the dryer daily — big families, guests, linens, weekly turnover before Shabbos. A vent that would take three years to load up in a two-person apartment can load up in a year in a busy house. Volume, more than anything else, is what sets the cleaning interval.
The south edge gets coastal air. Streets toward Atlantic Beach and the Inwood waterfront take salt-carrying wind much of the year. Salt is hard on exterior vent hardware: flappers corrode at the hinge, caps stick half-open, and a stuck flapper is both an airflow restriction and an open door for birds. If your exterior cap faces the water, it needs to be looked at more often than the duct behind it.
The signs a Five Towns dryer vent is overdue
Same physics as anywhere else. In order of how often we hear them on the phone:
- Loads need a second cycle, or towels come out damp at the end of a normal one.
- The laundry room runs hot and humid while the dryer works.
- A burning or "hot lint" smell during a cycle.
- Little or no airflow at the outside vent while the dryer runs — walk outside and hold a hand near the flap.
- The flap on the exterior cap doesn't open at all during a cycle, or hangs open when the machine is off.
- Lint collecting behind or under the machine.
- Nobody remembers the vent ever being professionally cleaned.
Any one of these is a reason to book. Two or more together usually means the run is badly restricted. The full symptom guide goes deeper on each of these.
What a visit actually looks like
The visit is the same service we run in Brooklyn, and it does not get abbreviated because the address is in Nassau County.
- Baseline airflow reading. We measure how the system is moving air before anything is touched, so the improvement is measured rather than claimed.
- Full-run mechanical cleaning. A rotary brush travels the entire duct — dryer to exterior termination — while a HEPA-filtered vacuum captures what the brush breaks loose. Elbows get worked specifically, because that is where the buildup concentrates.
- Exterior termination service. The cap is opened, cleared, and checked: does the flapper actually open under airflow and close flush when the machine stops? On south-facing and waterside homes this is where we find the corrosion. If the cap needs replacing, we tell you the price before we touch it.
- Connection check. The transition hose behind the dryer gets inspected and re-seated. Foil and plastic accordion hose gets flagged — it is a fire problem, and we can replace it with proper metal on the spot.
- After reading + written report. A second airflow measurement, photos of what came out, and a written report you keep. If you ever sell the house, that report is documentation.
Most single-dryer visits take about an hour. Long runs and blocked terminations take longer, and we tell you when we see it — not when we're packing up.
What it costs in the Five Towns
Flat pricing, published up front, same numbers as the rest of our service area:
- Total Home Protection — $199.99. Our most-booked package: the full vent line dryer to exterior cap, the under-lint-trap cavity inside the machine, a CO / gas safety check, and the airflow report. This is the package we recommend for a first visit or any house that has never had the vent professionally cleaned.
- Stackable washer-dryer unit — $199.99. Full cleaning including stack disassembly and reassembly.
- +$50 for second-floor dryers — the access surcharge for upstairs laundry setups.
- Washer gasket mold removal — $149.99 when added to a vent cleaning in the same visit (booked on its own out here it's $199.99, which covers the travel time).
- Repairs — a new exterior cap, metal transition hose, a crushed section of duct — are quoted in writing before any work starts.
No trip charge and no "Long Island premium." The price you see is the price you pay.
How the scheduling works
The honest version: we are a Brooklyn-based crew, and we serve the Five Towns on routed days — typically two or three days a week — rather than same-day. When you book, you're picking a slot on one of those runs. In practice that means an appointment inside the week is normal, and grouping neighbors on the same block onto one run is even better (if you and a neighbor book together, tell us — routing two stops on one street helps everyone).
Our hours fit the neighborhood: Sunday through Thursday 7am to 7pm, Friday until 3pm, and we are closed Saturday. Sunday appointments are real working appointments for us, not an exception.
How often should a Five Towns home clean the vent?
For a busy household running the dryer most days: once a year. For lighter use — two people, a few loads a week — every 18 to 24 months is defensible. For homes washing heavy linen loads weekly, or with a vent run past 30 feet, or an exterior cap facing the water: stay on the annual schedule and check the cap yourself seasonally. The frequency guide explains the reasoning in detail; the drivers — volume, run length, termination condition — are the same in Nassau County as in Brooklyn.
Frequently asked questions
Do you really come out to the Five Towns, or is this a subcontractor?
We come. The same family crew that does the Brooklyn work drives the Five Towns runs — nobody is dispatched from a call center, and no job is brokered out.
Can you do the dryer vent and the washer gasket in one visit?
Yes, and it is the most common pairing we do. Mention both when you book so the slot is sized for it.
My dryer is fine but the outside flap looks broken. Is that worth a visit?
Yes — a broken or stuck cap undoes a clean duct, and it is an open door for birds and pests. Text a photo of the cap to (718) 541-5567 and we can usually quote the replacement from the picture. The cover guide shows what a proper one looks like.
Do you service the Rockaways or Valley Stream?
The Five Towns proper plus the immediate surroundings — Atlantic Beach, Far Rockaway, Valley Stream — are on the same runs. If you're just outside that, call anyway; we'll tell you straight in 30 seconds whether we can route you.
Is there a code requirement to clean a residential dryer vent?
No — there is no inspection and no mandated interval for a private home. The reason to do it is that lint is fuel sitting in a duct next to a heat source, and a restricted vent makes every load slower and more expensive. We'd rather give you the honest reason than an invented regulation.
Book your Five Towns cleaning
Vent Pro NYC cleans dryer vents across the Five Towns — Cedarhurst, Lawrence, Woodmere, Hewlett, Inwood, and the surrounding streets — on routed days every week. Family-owned and operated, licensed and insured, 100+ five-star Google reviews, and a written airflow report on every visit. Book online, see the Five Towns service page, or call or text (718) 541-5567.
Vent Pro NYC
Family-owned. Brooklyn-based. Licensed. Insured.
We schedule Five Towns appointments on routed days each week — book online and pick a slot, or call or text (718) 541-5567 and we'll fit you into the next run.
Keep reading
The Complete Brooklyn Dryer Vent Cleaning Guide: Brownstones, Co-ops, Condos & Single-Family Homes
Brooklyn dryer vents are not like dryer vents anywhere else. This is the only guide you need — brownstone roof runs, co-op shared shafts, condo walls, real numbers, and what an honest clean actually looks like.
How Often Should You Clean Your Dryer Vent in Brooklyn? The Definitive Frequency Guide
Once a year is a suburban rule. Brooklyn is a different animal — here is how we actually set the interval.
The 11 Warning Signs Your Brooklyn Dryer Vent Is Clogged
Eleven specific warning signs we look for on every Brooklyn job, what each one tells us about the run, and the two that should make you unplug the dryer right now.
