Anyone else use Dryel? It’s for cleaning dry clean-only clothes at home. I tried it & so far it’s great. The stain remover worked, too. See:
http://www.dryel.com/usa/using_dryel/using_dryel.shtml
I like it, but the “fresh scent” is sometimes overpowering, if I don’t throw enough items of clothing in there with the little cloth.
Do be careful with it, though. My brother and his family recently had a big scare with carbon monoxide in their house. They kept noticing black dust all over everything, and were headachey and tired a lot. After a few days of this, they finally brought someone in to take a look, and was told it’s carbon monoxide and something was wrong with their furnace. They brought a furnace guy in, and it seems the heating pipes from the furnace had holes in them, allowing carbon monoxide to escape into the house. The house is less than ten years old, so they asked why there were holes. Both the fire department and the furnace guy told them it was the use of the home dry cleaning substances being used. Seems the dryer was fairly close to the furnace, and they have a teenage daughter who uses that Dryel stuff all the time. Something in the Dryel caused the furnace pipes to develop leaks. Had the dryer been a little farther from the furnace, it wouldn’t have been a problem.
Incidentally, the fire department told them that the only reason that the whole family was not either very sick or dead was that my sister-in-law had been opening the windows in the bedroom at night, in hopes that it would help some of the symptoms they had been seeing.
Just a little warning… move that dryer AWAY from the furnace if you’re gonna use that stuff.
I tried it a year ago or so when it first came out. I like the stain-remover, but I don’t like the “fresh scent” at all. Most of my dry-clean only stuff is fancy or dressy, and I either wear the pieces so rarely that I don’t wash them every single time, or I wear them out a lot to smoky bars. Either way, when I get them dry-cleaned, it’s usually because the items are getting stinky. But as far as I could tell, the Dryel did absolutely nothing to get rid of the odor; it just covered it up with the hideous fresh scent.
I hate Febreeze and Downey Wrinkle Remover for the same reasons - the cover-up smell. So if you don’t mind that, you might be happier with it.
Within the past 10 months a writer for Slate, an online magazine, did a consumer story comparing a couple of do-it-yourself dry cleaning products with her local shop. Worth checking out.
I’ve been using Dryel ever since I figured out what a hassle it is to get my parents to take my clothes to be dry-cleaned. It works great for me, but make sure you replace the bag after, what is it, 20 uses, or just whenever it starts to look worn out.
How would something used inside the dryer (which is vented outside) affect the pipes inside the furnace? Sounds like neither the furnace guy nor the fire department know what they’re talking about or is just looking for a scapegoat.
I would have them (your family) go back to whoever installed their furnance in the first place. It sounds more like faulty or substandard pipes were used for the furnace. After only 10 years it should still be under warranty.
And moving a dryer isn’t as easy as just shoving it over. It’s attached to a gas line and a vent to the outside. You don’t want to mess with either one. If you start moving a dryer and break a gas line, you’d really be in big trouble.
Bibliocat, I’m just repeating what I was told. I highly doubt it was a cover up or anything like that - my family is in the construction business in a small town, and it’s very unlikely that a faulty or substandard installation would have gone unnoticed. Also, any sort of ‘story’ to cover up something that could very easily have killed an entire family opens the doors to many lawsuits. I tend to believe the local fire department when they tell me such things. Why in the world would they lie about the cause of a carbon monoxide leak?
Dryers can be electric as well as gas. Moving one can be as simple as pushing it over if the vent line is long enough. In my house, I have a flexible vent line that allows several feet of movement.
Believe it or not - I’m just repeating something that could potentially affect those who use these products.
Athena, I didn’t mean to imply they were trying to cover up anything, I just meant that the Dryel sheets are basically perfumed sheets (like Bounce), and I couldn’t understand how that could adversely affect pipes inside the furnace.
My husband is a firefighter, and they get calls (thru 911) all the time from people whose carbon monoxide detectors are going off. They can’t really do anything about it…they have to respond to the call, of course, but then they just tell them to call a furnace person. I asked him about it and he said the fire department wouldn’t really know about that stuff. It’s strictly HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) people…the furnace guys.
Today I found refills that appear to have eliminated the powerful scent. So now you can get “Original Scent” or “Whisper Fresh Scent.”
I’ve lost the bag that comes with the Dryel kit. Is there anything else I could use in place of the bag that you put the clothes in? Can you buy replacent bags?
I wouldn’t use anything other than Dryel’s own bag product. They have a web site that includes a contact link to ask them a question at:
http://www.dryel.com/usa/index.shtml
You might have to buy the starter kit again.