My family is still using the original clothes washer that we bought in 1986, but we’re on our third clothes dryer. So I was delighted to stumble across this simple tip for extending (and perhaps doubling) the life of a dryer. Excerpt:

Just removing the lint from the filter isn’t always enough — the fine mesh of most dryer filters can be clogged in ways that aren’t obvious at a casual glance. As suggested by the piece quoted above, softener sheets can cause waxy build-ups on lint screens that require a little extra effort — usually no more than a quick scrub and rinse in warm, soapy water — to remove.

Thanks to Gerard Van Der Leun for pointing this one out.