EDIT: I’ve attached a rough map of the situation. The laundry room is the little room in the middle. The red dot is where the dryer vents into the garage.
My house is weird. Built mid-1970s. Upper Midwest.
One of the weird/annoying things about my house is the fact that the clothes dryer vent opens up into the house’s attached garage rather than venting outside. This is an electric dryer, so the vent is just hot wet air – nothing like CO or anything.
Ideally, I’d like the dryer to vent to the outside and not turn my garage into a stagnant humid swamp every time I dry clothes (most days, actually, because I have many children). But the laundry room isn’t situated in a way that makes outside venting easy. It’s on the main level, right in the middle of the floorplan. No basement access, so I can’t add ductwork through the floor. No usable ceiling access either.
What options do I have to make this mess annoying? Add venting to the garage somehow?
I’m betting the garage might have originally been a carport. In the short term you could leave the garage door cracked a few inches to vent it. Perhaps set up a box fan in the garage to run while you run the dryer in order to circulate the air. Regardless, you’ll get a mild amount of air mixing through natural convection with the garage door cracked, but a fan would help. Rerouting it will take someone handy or a contractor.
When feasible, I leave the garage door open to help with air flow. I think my garage door opener has the ability to set alternate opening “programs” so maybe I can set one that gives a few inches of opening. That would mitigate most of my concerns with leaving the garage door open.