I would try taking the vent pipe off the dryer and running the dryer through a cycle. If it still stops in 4 minutes then it sounds like a dryer problem instead of venting problems.Use an old nylon stocking over your dryer discharge to catch any lint while doing the test.Maybe this will help narrow down the cause of the problem.

I second sparky's excellent diagnostic advice.
23 feet is not an especially long vent run, but with 4 bends it might be a bit tight, plus there might be a lint pileup at one of the bends.
The Bosch dryers seem to be kind of sensitive to air flow problems. If it turns out to be the vent, there are in-line booster fans that you can install in the vent duct to expedite air flow. - DR

OK, I agree with Sparky here on seeing if the dryer has a problem without the venting connected, an old hose/sock will fit around the dryer exhaust pipe, just re=tighten the clamp you loosen to remove that flex hose... IF it doesn't shut down then, you know it's not the dryer... if it does, you know it IS the dryer and not the venting... either way you've isolated the problem and the repair guys can't get off by telling you it's a duct problemif it shuts off with no ducting!

I'd still get rid of the flex hose... just my personal opinion... it doesn't take any "skill" to fit the pieces and you can buy them at home depot/lowes... you need to elbows and one straight piece... use a ruler, you can figure it out... the flex stuff collects lint in between each spring section over time...

Another thought... did you try to clean out the vent pipe IN the dryer itself??? maybe... just maybe a sock or some other small item got down the lint vent??? or was in it from the factory???

while you're disconnecting that vent hose to try the sock thing, take a flashlight and look in as far as you can, if I remember right, it's a pretty cler view for several inches....

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your responses to our dilemma. I will try the nylon over the vent first, taking off the vent hose.

It's a brand new machine so I don't understand the part about something being stuck in the lint vent, and that the 2 repair guys didn't see or check that but I'll look.

About the flexible vent pipe, that's a good suggestion to go with the rigid. I just found this online with a google search, and yes, I do try to get the answers elsewhere before I make a fool of myself and post stupid questions here :o)
{{gwi:2017858}}

Clarifying an Answer About a Vent Pipe

By Dwight Barnett
Scripps Howard News Service

What is the proper material to use for a clothes-dryer vent pipe? That's the question asked by Lon Grossman and Joe Gagnon, hosts of "Ask the Handyman," heard each Saturday on Detroit's AM 1270.

It seems that a caller had e-mailed one of my articles to the show expounding the use of a flexible vinyl dryer vent pipe. Grossman was kind enough to invite me to clarify this matter on the show, which I did.

In my article I stated that the reader could use plastic pipe for the connector only. The dryer was located in a concrete-block walkout basement where a new hole had to be cut in the block wall for the vent. I'm glad "Ask the Handyman" caught this mistake.

Let me state now and for the future: I do not recommend the use of this highly flammable and easily damaged material. To be safe and to meet modern standards, throw away your old venting pipe and replace it with ridged metal pipe and semi-rigid flexible connectors. Limit the length of flexible pipe to a total of 8 feet and the overall total piping to 25 feet.

Do not use screws that penetrate the pipe, and make sure the joints run in the direction of the airflow.

Do not vent a dryer to an attic or a crawl space, not only because of the potential for a fire, but also because all that moisture can lead to decay damage.

Why all the fuss over vent pipe? The following information was taken from the Webpage of the Consumer Product Safety Commission:

"The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that in 1998, clothes dryers were associated with 15,600 fires, which resulted in 20 deaths and 370 injuries. Fires can occur when lint builds up in the dryer or in the exhaust duct. Lint can block the flow of air, cause excessive heat buildup, and result in a fire in some dryers.

"Replace plastic or foil, accordion-type ducting material with rigid or corrugated semi-rigid metal duct. Most manufacturers specify the use of a rigid or corrugated semi-rigid metal duct, which provides maximum airflow. The flexible plastic or foil type duct can more easily trap lint and is more susceptible to kinks or crushing, which can greatly reduce the airflow."

When shopping for dryer vent pipe and connectors at your local home store, you'll find flexible vinyl and flexible aluminum pipe that is rated UL 181 by Underwriters Laboratory. This type of pipe is used for heating ducts, bathroom vent fans and general purpose venting, but not for clothes dryers.

Look for the semi-rigid flexible aluminum ducting, UL 2158A, which is approved for dryers or range hoods and temperatures up to 430 degrees F. Trying to save a few dollars on vent pipe could end up costing you your home.

I'll report back soon.

Steve R

PS - I just hooked this up the way you said to and ... no error! It was like a dream, it worked for 40 minutes without shutting off.

So, what next? Do I need to call in the duct cleaning people? Is that my next logical step? Not really interested in doing this if I don't have to. I get ALOT of air blowing out the back of the house where the vent is, so why would I need to have my ducts cleaned? These machines shouldn't be this sensitive.

Steve R

Your dryer is trying to do what old dryers do not, namely dry the laundry with a regulated amount of hot air.
Even if air flow was cut down by 50%, it would still feel like a lot of air was coming out the vent. However, this would throw the dryer's regulation way off. While it is arguable that this amount of sophistication in a dryer is unnecessary - many of us are happily using crude dryers from 20 years ago - it is what you get when you get a Bosch dryer. It is like cars: most (all?) new gas-powered cars have sophisticated electronic fuel injection systems which carefully monitor air flow and engine behavior, and contour the fuel mixture for conditions; this gives you more power/gallon and a smoother ride, but if your $50 rev sensor fails the car is dead.
As for your vent, the problem could be the geometry, or it could be a lint buildup. If the latter, then your dryer is doing you a favor, as you are risking a fire. You could get the duct cleaned, or replaced, or add a booster fan - it is your call. If the tube running in your wall is relatively straight and up to current code, then a cleaning is the obvious solution. If you really haven't had it done in 19 years, then don't think of it as an added laundry room cost, think of it as normal required house maintenance, like changing fluids in your car. - DR

Dross - if you ever left this forum, we would be in for a huge loss. Thx for that astute advice. I will call the duct cleaning gents out of the phone book and get them here pronto.

To be continued... hopefully and assuredly, to a good end.

Steve R

Amen to that! Keep us up to date - please!

depending on the length of the piping in your walls, you could always clean them out yourself. I bought a round brush on a long flexible (not totally stiff) heavy wire, that I can push into the pipe from the outside where it vents (dormer in the roof) I can get this all the way to the bottom of the pipe at the floor in the laundry closet (had to add onto the wire...but it is do-able)

It's a pita to do, but I do it each summer... husband complains as not all that much really comes out... I get the most out at the bottom of the pipe at the floor since there are no bends from the floor of the closet until the vent goes through the wall about 10 above...

the brush looks very similar to a chimney brush...

Thx plumbly22. I can't really visualize the type of brush on a wire system you're referring to. You don't have to have a pic of it, do you? Or a source where to buy it?

Steve

I saw such this in the skymall catalog on a flight yesterday! I had no idea these even existed.

Type "dryer vent brush" in the search box for the skymall url.

Here is a link that might be useful: dryer vent brush

I bought it from the improvements catalog...

link for it it...

http://www.improvementscatalog.com/Parent.asp?product=131839x&dept%5Fid=11000&subdept%5Fid=11400

I also bought the flexible vac... this I use about once a month.... it is great...

http://www.improvementscatalog.com/Parent.asp?product=224551x&dept%5Fid=11000&subdept%5Fid=11400

Very cool. Thx alot folks. {{gwi:2017860}}

Never heard of one of these. I'm going to order one and see if it works before we spend $125 for a duct cleaning. Do you think this is long enough to do what we wanted?

Steve R

You could tie the straight end to your pet gerbil, and entice him to run the length of the vent... - DR

Steve...

Do you know if your ducts in the walls/floors are the flexible stuff??? If so, I'm thinking that would be a real problem, stuff just collects in those parts between the springs...

Any idea on how long the wall/floor ducting is, or how many turns? Is it in your basement/crawlspace, or not accessible?

Good luck with the cleaning out... that brush has worked fine for me... but mine is stragiht down once I get inside the vent through the outside wall, until the floor by the dryer, I tie a weight on the brush part with a long string, thread it in, and let it drop, and add extra length to the wirey part to make sure we can grab it top and bottom, and then we pull it up and down a few times, and I remove it through the bottom... and the vac up all the debris... since mine is 100% vertical it's not bad, turns and fat could be a different story...

I don't think the leaf blower did much for you. I know when my pipe clogged, it was very wet and caked onto the pipe. Before my Siemens dryer was installed, I bought a similar modular flex brush from smarthome.com. Best $40 I ever spent. I'm going to clean it every year now. Good luck. Haven't had any issues since.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lint Eater at Smarthome.com

Plumbly22 - Yeah, reading what you just wrote, I'm not this brush would work for us. Ours is probably not the flexible ducts, but it's under the wood floor in our kitchen, totally unaccessible to my best knowledge, and is almost all horizontal, not vertical.

To everyone else... maybe we'll buy the brush anyway and just try it. Worse thing is that it won't work.

Steve R

Ok.. I had the same exact dryer, and the same exact problem. I also had hot air comming out of my vent outside. My machine ran fine with no dryer hose attached to it.

I took the advice of this post and put on some old clothes and headed into the crawl space.

What I found was the 4" rigid pipe as mentioned. Ok. Good so far, I have to right pipe. I then started at the dryer and worked my way back. My pipe is shaped more like half a Y (so not so straight, and I'm closer to 25' than I am to 20'. I took off the fitting through the floor, and found a good bit of lint in the rigid pipe. My wife was kind enough to lend me her duster, which had an extension pole on it (about 6 feet) and fit ito the pipe perfectly, like a chimey sweep. I thenn noticed, that my rigid pipe was in about 2 foot sections and was just duct taped at each joint. Perfect, I took apart about 6' sections and really cleaned out the pipes with the duster. I was AMAZED at how much lint was in the pipe. My house was built in 1979 and I doubt this was ever done before. I cleaned out each section till I got to the exterior vent. Nice. I then put the peices back together snugly and duct taped the joints back together. I also took off the elbow and cleaned that out, I mean if your going to be in the crawlspace getting dirty, you might as well do it right. Finally I put the dryer floor fitting back together. I called my wife on the cell phone (about 1 foot above me) and told her to try the dryer.

On my way back into the house I checked the exterior vent, and boy was I suprised at the difference in the amount of hot air comming out.

My dryer unit is now working perfectly. In retrospect, this feature might have saved me from a fire.

Thank you to everyone on this thread for the spot on perfect advice. I thank you, my wife THANKS you, and most importantly, my safe 14 month old thanks you.

I just bought the 500 dryer and I want my old hunk of junk back. It is doing the same error and shutting off. I bought a vent brush, ran a fish tape up to the roof and tied off the brush and pulled it through a few times. Plenty of lint came out. I reconnected the dryer and same crap. From the back of the dryer to the roof vent cannot be more than 20-25 feet. The dryer did work fine when it was not connected to the vent, but I cannot leave it like that, especially for a $600 machine, it is unacceptable. I have called the tech and they will be coming next week. In the mean time, the laundry is really piling up.

I have the exact same problem with my Bosch nexxt-series dryer. E01 error beeps almost within 3-5 minutes of firing up my dryer. At first thought that the unit was defective. Even Bosch's own service tech guy agreed that the problem was in our particular machine (that it was a lemon). So store we bought it from agreed to exchange another unit. Same thing happened again. Called up Bosch...and was told by the phone rep there that this was indeed a very common problem and that it could usually be fixed by replacing the flexible duct with a more rigid metal duct that anyone could get from either Home Depot or Lowes. The flexible duct is the type shown in Steve's photos...so if you have one of those, don't use it with your Bosch dryer.

From a SAFETY perspective people I believe the message is no matter what type of dryer you have... you should NOT have the flexible duct work.... switch that out to the rigid ducting, and clean it once in a while!.... Thank god the Bosch IS sensitive.... these cases were fires waiting to happen with any dryer.... especially if the ducting was left as it was...

I for one am glad my dryer is sensitive to lint build up... my husband on the other hand???? :)

The installation instructions for most dryers specify the rigid metal ducting for best performance. They also provide a maximum duct length for the dryer. What many people don't realize is that distance gets subtracted from that maximum length for using flexible metal ducting and for each 90 degree turn or elbow. Distance is usually also subtracted if you make use of the side or bottom venting options for the dryer (there are turns within the machine for those options).

Most User Manual include a chart that shows the net distance that's available for a given configuration. The Bosch 500 User Manual includes the following chart and information - as you'll see, rigid duct allows much more distance than the flexible metal duct:

Turns / Rigid Duct / Flexible Duct (Metal)
0 / 66 ft / 45 ft
1 / 56 ft / 36 ft
2 / 48 ft / 29 ft
3 / 39 ft / 22 ft
4 / 30 ft / 16 ft
Note: side and bottom exhaust installations have a 90 degree turn within the dryer - it counts as one 90 degree turn for the chart. For best performance separate all turns by at least 4 feet.

For those of you that have to use 90 degree turns, you may want to consider a product called the dryer ell (see link below) - it has a larger radius than the traditional elbow joint that reduces the friction at the turn, allowing better airflow and improving dryer performance (will also make it much easier to clean the ducting with the wider turn). According to the engineering studies, it provides a net gain of 4.8' in allowable duct length compared to a normal elbow joint.

I'm not associated with the company - I was directed to the product by another poster since my ducting required 4 90 degree turns - I was able to use it for 3 of the 4 turns.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dryer Ell

Replaced my Maytag with a Bosch 500 and have become an EO1 victim. Having already done many of the things suggested prior to vent replacement, it looks as though vent duct replacement will be necessary - replacing the flexible vinyl with rigid. The laundry second floor ducting (27 ft.) runs between first and second floor. I've resigned myself to removing the portion of the first floor ceiling to gain access to the ducting. However, there is an 8' area that I will not have direct access to and thus must fish the duct through a tight area. Question: Is it possible to use 8' lengths of 4" thin-walled PVC if metal pipe runs the first 4' and connects to the dryer?

RIGID metal preferred
No plastic
No PVC (causes static, collects lint)
No screws
FOIL tape only
Entire length should be accessible for regular cleaning

27' is a loong run, how many 90 elbows are there ?

Why do builders/people put their laundry room so far from an outside wall ?

i have the 4500uc. paid almost a grand for it.
same problem. Intermitent though. Last week it was acting up. this week works fine.
Mine is against an outside wall with only 2feet of ducting.

I'm not sure how different the 500 is, but I had a similar experience in our new house with our Bosch Nexxt (optimistic on their part, eh?) Dryer. It worked for a while, but then sometimes would shut off in about 5 minutes, leaving a load of damp clothes. The duct didn't seem too long, but had some sharp bends, screws, and a narrow spot in the wall. I removed the old stuff and used a heavy duty dust collector hose. (like the hose of a Shop Vac, but in 4" dia.) With the sweeping bends and shorter length, I thought NOW it will work. It didn't. I ended up buying a new temperature regulator. (repairclinic.com ~$8)

The cool thing is that it's a little blunt metal tip sticking in to the lint filter area (see it when you pull the filter) and it's mounted in a very soft rubber plug. If you undo the round cover on the front of the machine you can reach around to the back of it and pull it out. Swap the wires and push it back into place.

I hope you get it worked out. These things are frustrating. I just had my machine all apart because the stainless drum was cracking and falling apart. (a 3 yr old machine with a 2 yr warranty) All welded together and ground smooth, now the electronics are acting up.

OK, I think it's safe to say that the Bosch dryers are a wee bit overly sensitive to air flow. This is clearly estlablished. Here's a few tip's for EO1 sufferer's. I think the use of flex duct is out of the question to use with these dryers. The straight runs of the flex hose will collect as much lint as a 90 deg. bend smooth sided rigid duct, especially if the flex duct is not fully stretched out. Any flex duct that is not stretched out fully will trap lint like crazy. If you have excess duct, do not leave it bunched up. Stretch it out fully and cut off the excess if you must use it. Smooth sided rigid ducting will reduce lint build up but annual cleaning of any duct on a well used dryer is essential to proper dryer operation and maximum efficiency. Another option that will help people with EO1 syndrome (if feasable), is the use of oversized ducting. You can get adaptors that will allow the use of 5 or even 6 inch ducting that will help increase air flow in long runs of ducting. I don't know if the sensor is operated on temperature or air flow, but it appears that these dryers do not tolerate any air flow obstruction. Another thing to be looked at is proper installation of the duct work. Heat naturally rises and any duct work that flows downward will cause back pressure, just as if it were partially clogged. Any down flowing sections should be removed and rerouted to at least be level, but ultimately flowing upward. Any bends in the duct should be kept to a minimum. If you can get away with a 45 rather than a 90 deg. bend, do it. If possible, make the duct work flow upward all the way to the house vent and keep bends to a minimum. Make sure your outside vent has something on it to prevent critters from entering the duct work, especially if it's near ground level. Don't use a screen on the outside vent unless it has at least 3/4 inch square sized holes and clean it often too. Use foil tape to seal seams and it's a good idea to leave a seam untaped every 6 or 8 feet so that you can easily take the ducts apart for cleaning every year. Anyone who has had to remove that foil tape on a joint will know why I say to leave it off. It's not easy to remove! I found a vent duct brush with a 6 foot wire handle for $6 at a hardware store. A must have to clean the ducts. My wife has one of those ball shaped cob web broom things on an extendable handle. They work great for cleaning ducts too. If you're not into taking the ducts apart,you can buy these plastic things that are advertised as "heating vents" that go in line with your duct work so that you can open the vent and use the heat from your dryer to heat your basement or wherever. They fit in line with the duct work and they have a little lever on them to open and close the vent. If you don't mind 100% humidity in your basement they're fine, but they also allow you access to the vent for cleaning which is what I use them for . They're cheap and are easy to install. The only problem is that you can only clean in one direction when it's open so you'll have to put one every 8 or 10 feet if you have a long run. Just something to consider if you don't want to take the ducts apart for cleaning every year. Hope this helps. Happy duct cleaning!!

Hello all, I literally just figured this out seconds ago. I also had this E01 nightmare on a Bosch Nexxxt 500 dryer. I had my ducts and dryer professionally cleaned. We kept getting the E01 code. Some days were better than others. I finally read an appliance repair website that specified running water through the lint filter. If water does not run through the lint filter, it has a coating on it from dryer sheets. The screen is very fine. Sure enough, about 3/4 of each section was blocked with a coating. I scrubbed it with hot water and soap and now water runs through. No more E01 error. I was ready to give this thing away and get a different dryer. Now, it is operating perfectly and drying much faster. Bosch should specify cleaning the lint screen every couple of months. The blockage is not obvious until you run water through the screen. I canceled the service call I had scheduled. I'm sure that's what a Bosch technician would have done to fix the problem. It reminds me of the time that my air conditioner was not blowing cold air. The technician took a hose and hosed out all of the cottonwood from the air conditioner outside. It turns out that the E01 sensor is telling the truth and it is not overly sensitive. Just add the step of washing the lint filter with hot water, soap, and a brush to the troubleshooting steps. I'm very relieved!