The booking tile reads “Laundry Wash & Dry (Per Load)”, with the note “We sort + fold”, and the add-on card calls it “Laundry — wash, dry, fold”. You are standing at a client’s dryer with a pile of laundry you did not pack. The line names a wash, a dry and a fold, and it names no machine, no detergent and nothing about what is in the load.
Below is a one-page card for the dryer step, with two fictional visits. It is a suggested personal record for independent cleaners, not a Hometress requirement, training standard or app feature, and it does not tell you how to run a dryer. The pages are four manuals from three makers, GE, LG and Samsung, read on November 2, 2026. That is four manuals, not every dryer a client owns, and this guide does not claim otherwise. It covers the dryer step only, not the washer and not the folding. The task lines come from our published cleaning checklist.
The short answer
- All four manuals print the same sentence about cooking oil: do not place items exposed to cooking oils in your dryer. GE prints it in capitals. All four add a paragraph about a cool-down period at the end of the cycle.
- Three of the four say washing does not clear the oil: GE, LG’s DLE3600 manual and Samsung. LG’s first manual, for the DLHC5502, has no sentence in the pages I read that says washing does not clear the oil.
- Only Samsung names a cycle for such items: page 10 says to use Cool Down for them. The same manual says not to dry items soiled with oil on pages 38 and 55. I do not choose between its pages.
- All four say to clean the lint screen or filter, and each prints “before or after each load” in its safety list. GE page 13 says “before each use”, and LG’s DLE3600 manual says before every load on page 34 and after every cycle on page 50.
- Ours, not theirs: the card records the machine, the load as told, the oil question, the screen and the cycle. It sets no method.
What the sheet says and what it leaves open
Hometress’s booking tile for the add-on reads “Laundry Wash & Dry (Per Load)” with the note “We sort + fold”, and the add-on card calls it “Laundry — wash, dry, fold”. The Dream Home checklist lists “Laundry Wash & Dry (2 Loads)”, right after “Change Bedsheets (2 bedrooms included)”. None of those says whose washer or dryer, whose detergent, or what a load is, and none mentions a lint screen or oil.
Our customer guide to the add-on, will a load finish in a Philadelphia visit, says the same about the load and covers the washer and dryer cycle times, which this card does not repeat. Two of our cleaner cards sit nearby: the vacuum-filter card is about a different machine’s filter, and the cloth-colors card is about your own cleaning cloths. This card is about a client’s load.
Four manuals, three makers
The pages are the GE Appliances dryer manual 49-3000386 (Rev 0, 08-23, 13 pages), the LG owner’s manual MFL69783892 for the DLHC5502 (Rev.00_101723, © 2023, 64 pages), the LG owner’s manual MFL70442647 for the DLE3600 family (Rev.05_083120, © 2020, 63 pages) and the Samsung user manual for the DV90F53A** (68 pages, stamped 2025-05-28). Two of the four PDFs are copies hosted by Home Depot and two by a product-spec site. None came from a maker page I opened, and a current manual for the same model could differ. Page numbers below are PDF pages. Each manual is about its own models. Where a cell says something is not in a manual, that is a statement about the pages I read, not about the maker’s other documents.
| Document | Cooking oil and oily loads | The lint screen or filter | Interior and duct |
|---|---|---|---|
| GE Appliances dryer manual 49-3000386 Rev 0 08-23 | “DO NOT place items exposed to cooking oils in your dryer.” Page 2. Pages 4 and 12, in a fire-hazard warning box: “No washer can completely remove oil.” The next line is “DO NOT dry anything that has ever had any type of oil on it (including cooking oils).” | Page 2: “Clean lint screen before or after each load.” and “DO NOT operate the dryer without the lint filter in place.” Page 13: “Clean the lint filter before each use.” For a waxy buildup from fabric softener sheets: “wash the lint screen in warm, soapy water.” | Page 2: “The interior of the appliance and exhaust duct should be cleaned periodically by qualified service personnel.” Page 13 says “once a year by qualified service personnel”, then prints three owner steps for the exhaust duct, the first “Turn off electrical supply by disconnecting the plug from the wall socket.” |
| LG DLHC5502* owner’s manual MFL69783892 Rev.00_101723 (© 2023) | “Do not place items exposed to cooking oils in your dryer.” Page 5. Page 4 lists “vegetable oil, cooking oil or other flammable or explosive substances” among things a dried article must not be “soiled with or spotted with”, and says “Do not put oily or greasy clothing, candles or flammable materials on top of the appliance.” No sentence in the pages I read says washing does not clear the oil. | Page 6: “Clean the lint filter before or after each load.” Page 24: the heading “Check the Lint Filter Before Every Load”. Page 25: “Running the dryer with a loose or missing lint filter will damage the dryer and articles in the dryer.” Page 42, its three-piece filter: “Clean both inner filters after every cycle.” | Page 5: “The interior of the appliance and exhaust duct should be cleaned periodically by qualified service personnel.” |
| LG DLE3600* and related models owner’s manual MFL70442647 Rev.05_083120 (© 2020) | “Do not place items exposed to cooking oils in your dryer.” Page 7. Page 34: “Never dry clothes that have been exposed to oil, gasoline, or other flammable substances. Washing clothes will not completely remove oil residues.” | Page 8: “Clean the lint filter before or after each load.” Page 34: the heading “Check the Lint Filter Before Every Load”. Page 50: “Always clean the lint from the filter after every cycle.” If the filter is “very dirty or clogged with fabric softener”: “wash the lint filter in warm, soapy water”. | Page 8: “The interior of the appliance and exhaust duct should be cleaned periodically by qualified service personnel.” Page 50: “Vent ductwork should be checked for lint buildup once per month and cleaned at least once per year.” and “Contact a qualified technician or service provider.” |
| Samsung DV90F53A** user manual (PDF stamped 2025-05-28) | “Do not place items exposed to cooking oils in your dryer.” Page 8. Page 9: “Even after being washed, these items may contain significant amounts of these oils.” Page 10: “Washing these items in hot water with extra detergent will reduce, but not eliminate, the hazard. Always use the Cool Down cycle for these items to reduce their temperature.” Page 38: “Do not dry items soiled with oil, alcohol, gasoline, etc.” Page 55, under a warning that begins “Do not dry:”, lists “Items spotted or soaked with vegetable or cooking oils”. | Page 9: “Clean the lint screen before or after each load.” Page 38: “To prevent a risk of fire, make sure to clean the lint filter before or after every load.” and “Do not operate the dryer without the lint filter in place.” Its steps: “Remove the lint, and then clean the lint filter.” | Page 9: “The interior of the dryer and exhaust duct should be cleaned periodically by qualified service personnel.” Page 34: “We recommend that you clean the exhaust system annually or on a regular basis.” Page 58: “Ducting should be inspected and cleaned annually.” |
Where the manuals agree and where they go quiet
They agree on oil. All four print the sentence about items exposed to cooking oils, and all four print the cool-down paragraph that follows it: the last part of the cycle runs without heat, and “Avoid stopping a tumble dryer before the end of the drying cycle unless all items are quickly removed and spread out so that the heat is dissipated.” Three of the four also say washing does not clear it: GE’s “No washer can completely remove oil.”, LG’s DLE3600 “Washing clothes will not completely remove oil residues.” and Samsung’s “Even after being washed, these items may contain significant amounts of these oils.” The first LG manual, for the DLHC5502, has no sentence in the pages I read that says washing does not clear the oil.
They go quiet on what a cleaner does with an oily load. GE and both LG manuals say not to dry it. Samsung says the same on pages 9, 38 and 55, and on page 10 it also prints a Cool Down instruction for these items: use that cycle, and do not remove them hot or interrupt the drying cycle until they have run through Cool Down. I do not read page 10 as permission to dry them, and I do not read pages 38 and 55 as cancelling it. The sheet gives a cleaner no instruction about a client’s oily towels, and neither does this guide.
On the lint screen the timing words differ, even inside one manual. Each manual prints “before or after each load” in its safety pages. GE’s page 13 says “before each use”, LG’s DLE3600 manual says “Before Every Load” on page 34 and “after every cycle” on page 50, and Samsung’s page 38 says “before or after every load”. The DLHC5502 manual has a separate rule for each part of its three-piece filter. All four put the filter in place before the dryer runs, in their own words, and both LG manuals say what a loose or missing one does.
Ducts are where the wording differs most. GE prints “qualified service personnel” and also three owner steps for the exhaust duct. The LG DLE3600 manual says to check ductwork monthly, clean it yearly and contact a qualified technician. Samsung recommends cleaning annually. The sheet’s line names no duct, so the card leaves ducts out, and I make no claim about who cleans a duct in a Hometress visit.
Whirlpool’s and Maytag’s dryer manuals are not here. I could not open them, so any wording for those makers stays out.
The card
Copy this into a note, one card per visit. Work down the rows in order; the right-hand column is what to write when you cannot fill a row in.
| Field | What to write | If you cannot fill it in |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Line and loads | The line as booked (“Laundry Wash & Dry (Per Load)”, or on Dream Home “Laundry Wash & Dry (2 Loads)”), how many loads you ran, and in what order. | Write “loads not counted”. |
| 2. Dryer as seen | The maker and model if you can read its label, and whether the lint screen was in place when you opened the door. | Write “dryer unknown”. |
| 3. Load as told | What the client said was in the pile, and how you know: a client note, or only what you could see. | Write “contents not confirmed”. |
| 4. The oil question | Whether anything in the pile was a kitchen towel, apron or rag, what you asked, what you were told, and what you did with it: ran it, left it out, or did not run it. | Write “not asked”. |
| 5. Lint screen | When you checked it, what was on it, and that it was back in place before you pressed Start. | Write “screen not checked”. |
| 6. Cycle | The cycle you picked, whether it ran to its end, and if you stopped it early, what you did with the items. | Write what happened. |
| 7. Page followed | GE, LG (which manual), Samsung or none, and that the page is about that maker’s own models. | Write “none”. No page above covers a dryer of unknown make. |
| 8. Ask the client | An item you could not place, kitchen linen in the pile, a dryer with no lint screen, or a request to dry something the note did not describe. | Tell the client and write what you left. |
What to send when you cannot tell
Two lines, ours, not from any page. First: “I cannot tell from here what is in the pile or which dryer this is, and the dryer manuals I have read warn about drying anything that has had cooking oil on it.” Second: “Are there kitchen towels, aprons or rags in the pile, and is there anything you want left out? Until I hear, I will write down what I ran and what I did not.”
What the sheet does not define
It does not define a load, say whose machine or detergent, or say what happens to a load still running when the visit ends. The card is the habit that fills the gap: write what the machine was, what was in it, what you asked and what you left. The same habit is in our final walkthrough scope check and our surface-by-surface check.
Two fictional visits
These visits are fictional. The homes belong to no real client, and none of the makers has endorsed the card. The circumstances are invented; what a page says and what is our suggestion are marked separately.
A Standard visit with the add-on, a GE dryer and two kitchen towels
Line: Standard plus “Laundry Wash & Dry (Per Load)”. Dryer: a GE with a readable label, lint screen in place. Load as told: one basket of bath towels, and a client note that says two kitchen towels from cooking are in the pile. Page followed: GE page 2 for the cooking-oil sentence, and the warning box on pages 4 and 12. What I did: ran the bath towels, left the two kitchen towels out of the dryer, cleaned the lint screen before pressing Start and wrote what was on it in row 5. I wrote the towels in rows 4 and 8 and asked the client. The page says “No washer can completely remove oil.”, and the sheet gives no instruction for the two towels, so what happens to them next is the client’s call, not a rule I am following. Unresolved: whether the client wants the towels washed again or kept.
A Dream Home visit, two loads and a dryer I could not identify
Line: Dream Home, “Laundry Wash & Dry (2 Loads)”. Dryer: a front-loader with no label I could read, lint screen in place with a thick layer on it. Load as told: no client note, two baskets of sheets and clothes I could see, contents not confirmed. Page followed: none, because no page above covers a dryer of unknown make. What I did: cleaned the screen, wrote “before” in row 5, wrote “contents not confirmed” in row 3 and asked in row 8 whether anything in the baskets should be left out. I did not start either load until the client replied; that was my call on the day, not a rule from any page. Unresolved: what the client says is in the baskets, and which dryer this is.
What this guide leaves out
It recommends no brand, product or price. It covers no maker other than GE, LG and Samsung, because no other maker’s manual was read, and no washer or washer-dryer combination. It gives no fire statistics or causes beyond the makers’ own sentences, claims no Hometress laundry rule, and does not say whose machine or detergent a cleaner must use or may refuse. It gives no advice of its own on who is responsible if a load or a machine is damaged. It does not cover pay.
Where a platform fits
Hometress is a cleaning marketplace in Philadelphia. It is free to join, and cleaners carry their own insurance. If writing down what the load was is how you already work, the application takes about five minutes. This guide does not cover pay.