Bergers hope their product stops some of the hundreds of fires reported each year.
By Julia Versau
Times correspondent
It's great to have Paul Newman on your side when you're hawking a new invention.
In his latest film, Newman plays a handyman who exchanges household know-how for room
and board. When he tackles the dryer, he pulls out a wad of lint and debris that would
choke a horse and chastises his host, "no wonder your dryer caught fire."
A small part of the movie, but a big deal to Thomas and Linnea Berger. The
Valparaiso couple, owner of Eclectic Selections Inc., have invented a dryer lint brush
they hope will eliminate many clothes dryer fires. There were 3,800 caused specifically
by lint accumulation between 1990 and 1994, according to the National Fire Protection
Association, and these dryer detonations caused one death, 51 injuries and $9.3
million in property damage.
Team Effort
Tom Berger is a self proclaimed tinkerer who recently received patent on a
golf ball holder, but it was Linnea who was the driving force for the dryer tool.
"My wife was trying to get the gunk out of the lint trap and said,'Why don't
you invent something I can use to clean this out?'" Thomas said. "So I got to work and
I figured out what we'd need to do the job."
The solution was a 27-inch long pliable plastic pole with nylon bristles at
the end- a sort of stretched out bottle brush capable of reaching down into a lint trap
and flexible enough to bend along the way.
"You can find brushes that aren't long enough and poles that are long but have
no bristles to catch the lint." Thomas explained. "It seems obvious, really, but there
was nothing on the market for the task."
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Linnea and Thomas Berger of Valparaiso have invented and hold the patent for a
lint brush for cleaning clothes dryers and other household areas. Thousands of household
fires per year are caused by lint build up in dryers.
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The Bergers contracted with an Ohio company for the bristles and turned to
CoTronics in Logansport for manufacturing. The brush retails for $5.95 plus tax;
current manufacturing costs range between $2.50 and $3.00, depending on the quantity
run. Thomas said profit margins would increase with longer runs, but
marketing has proved to be the most difficult part.
Tough Cleaning Jobs
While some households ignore the lint traps of their dryers for long periods,
most people routinely clean the extractable lint trap in the top or front
panel. But reaching the debris buried deep down in the crevice, under the
lint screen and around the dryer drum is problematic.
That's a job usually tackled by appliance service people who take
the panels off the dryer and use a vacuum cleaner to suck out the lint. If
a dryer is a good performer-and all consumers hope for that- panels don't
come off very often.
"A homeowner can do a lot of it with the proper tool," Thomas
said. "Our product helps with routine cleaning, and will hopefully mean
fewer fires in clothes dryers."
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Valparaiso fireman Tom Steindler was impressed. When the Bergers
approached him about the dryer lint brush, he not only nodded his approval but
also bought one on the spot.
"I was impresses with the simplicity and knew it would fill a
need," Steindler said. "You should have seen the stuff we pulled out of our
dryer at the fire station."
Many Uses
The tool is handy for other jobs, too. Thomas said his customers have used
the long handled brush to clean cold air returns, narrow window tracks,
refrigerator coils and other hard -to- get- to spots.
At the moment, the Bergers have a garage loaded with boxes of
the dryer lint brushes. But they're hoping more stores stock the invention
soon. In between shifts as a Northern Indiana Public Service Co. stockman,
Thomas trudges from retailer to retailer extolling the benefits of the
brush.
"You can build a better mousetrap, but consumers have to see it
in the stores," he said. "If it prevents just one clothes dryer fire, we'll
consider ourselves successful."
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