Clothes dryer repair?

[leebee]

AH, the joys of home ownership! Our dryer is pretty old, but it's a real work-horse, or it was until recently. It's now taking three full cycles to dry a load of clothes. We aren't overloading the dryer or anything, not putting in towels or jeans, it's just not drying the way it used to. Yesterday DH and I took down the vertical dryer exhaust duct work and cleaned it out, and then took the back off the dryer. We cleaned out all the lint from the wires and such and removed the housing from the lint trap to clean that out, too. BOY was I shocked to see what gets thru the lint trap... bobby pins, paper clips, and three of DH's "missing" tie chains! Anyhow, we put it all back together, put in a load of wet laundry, and crossed our fingers. Nope... still took three dryer cycles to dry the clothes. Next weekend we will go up into the attic (ICK) and deal with the duct work there, but I'm beginning to think it might be something else. Anyone have any ideas? I don't know if dryers have sensors or heat detectors or whatever that, if they "go bad" will make the dryer not work properly? Three cycles to dry one load of clothes is excessive, and you can imagine what it's doing to our electric bill!

 

[kdonnel]

Replacing the dryer heating element is usually a relatively simple job if the person doing the work is at all handy.

I recommended replacing the thermal fuse and thermostat(s) at the same time.

For most older brands you can usually find a kit that includes all three for around $25-$35.

Youtube will be your friend. Look for a video for your model or atleast brand and watch to see if it appears to be something you are willing to do yourself. If not call a repair person. It should still be cheaper than a new dryer if you have to hire a repair person.

 

[dclpluto]

Replacing the dryer heating element is usually a relatively simple job if the person doing the work is at all handy.

I recommended replacing the thermal fuse and thermostat(s) at the same time.

For most older brands you can usually find a kit that includes all three for around $25-$35.

Youtube will be your friend. Look for a video for your model or atleast brand and watch to see if it appears to be something you are willing to do yourself. If not call a repair person. It should still be cheaper than a new dryer if you have to hire a repair person.

Also recommend you tube. You tube has saved me thousands of dollars over the years. Something that looks hard on paper no idea what I will be doing. Look at you tube and you will see most things are not that hard. Might have to pause and watch a section over a few times. But eventually it will get done.

 

[_19disnA]

Watching videos online won't hurt but may not help either. You have to be able to diagnose what is causing the issue with little/no heating. Could be a sensor, something electronic or the heating unit. You can randomly replace parts and still not have it working correctly. I would look at the videos and if the solution isn't obvious, would call a repairman to properly diagnose and fix the issue. Repairman can diagnose the problem far faster and likely has the necessary parts with him to get it fixed.

My mom had an issue with her older clothes dryer and it turned out the repair part for the heating unit was no longer available. She ended up buying a new dryer.

 

[kdonnel]

You have to be able to diagnose what is causing the issue with little/no heating.

That is why I recommend buying a kit that includes the heating element, thermal fuse, and thermostat(s).

For $30 and 1-2 hours time you can skip the diagnosis phase and just replace 99% of what normally causes little/no heating and have a working dryer.

I went through the diagnosis phase with one repair. Testing the heating element with my multimeter. Then using an electric griddle to test the thermostat. Replacing just the part that had failed. In the end I found it much easier and much quicker to just replace all the parts and skip the testing and diagnosis on future repairs of other dryers. I order the kit and only have to take apart the dryer once.

 

[Monykalyn]

Replacing the dryer heating element is usually a relatively simple job if the person doing the work is at all handy.

I recommended replacing the thermal fuse and thermostat(s) at the same time.

For most older brands you can usually find a kit that includes all three for around $25-$35.

Youtube will be your friend. Look for a video for your model or atleast brand and watch to see if it appears to be something you are willing to do yourself. If not call a repair person. It should still be cheaper than a new dryer if you have to hire a repair person.

Yep did this exact thing last year. My W/D set is over 15 years old, dryer quit working. Hubs did the replacement in few hours -works like new.
He also did YouTube repairs a couple times on our 20+year old fridge. That thing would NOT quit-and I’m too cheap to justify a new one when old working fine. Funny thing-did end up with newer fridge when friends remodeled and gave us their “old” fridge. It’s only a few years old but matches the rest of our stainless appliances (our fridge was white).

 

[Skippy918]

Our heating element on the dryer failed several months ago. The clothes were still cold. He was able to hook up the multimeter to the element and determined it failed. We got a new one and now it’s working fine.
could be clogged ducts too, so I would try and get all the lint out first. Our vent line runs out to the side of the house and it’s a straight shot there. I would assume the ones that vent to the roof clog more often cause you have gravity working against you.

 

[Micca]

BOY was I shocked to see what gets thru the lint trap... bobby pins, paper clips, and three of DH's "missing" tie chains!

Yet...no odd socks??? The mystery lives on! Sorry, no advice. You've already gone beyond the effort I'd have put it before ordering a new dryer. Hope you figure it out

 

[leebee]

Yet...no odd socks??? The mystery lives on! Sorry, no advice. You've already gone beyond the effort I'd have put it before ordering a new dryer. Hope you figure it out

Hahaha, from the amount of lint everywhere, I am pretty sure I found ALL the missing socks!

 

[focusondisney]

So your dryer vents out the attic? If you had that much lint in the dryer itself, the attic vents have just as much, or more. Ours vents out the basement wall right behind it. Whenever I notice clothes not drying, husband cleans that vent tubing to the outside & it fixes the issue.

 

[Bianca and Bernard]

Yet...no odd socks??? The mystery lives on! Sorry, no advice. You've already gone beyond the effort I'd have put it before ordering a new dryer. Hope you figure it out

The socks end up in the washer, under the drum

 

[leebee]

So your dryer vents out the attic? If you had that much lint in the dryer itself, the attic vents have just as much, or more. Ours vents out the basement wall right behind it. Whenever I notice clothes not drying, husband cleans that vent tubing to the outside & it fixes the issue.

Yeah, and there is about 20' of duct-work laying on the attic floor, to get it to the vent in the window. Guess how we will be spending Saturday? Actually, I'm not sure if we'll bother to clean it out, or just put down new duct-work. It's about $25 for the ducting. Seems like a bargain, compared to taking the time to brush out all the lint, making such a huge mess, etc.

SIL did laundry yesterday and said it only took two cycles to dry his towels, so that's good, I guess.

 

[jo-jo]

Never tried it, but read about using electric leaf blower to blow out ducts.

 

[marthachick]

I fixed our dryer with directions from YouTube and parts from Amazon or eBay. It wasn’t too hard.

 

[Dan Murphy]

can you still find that video maybe?

Welcome to the DIS, domin.

 

[lynxstch]

can you still find that video maybe?

Find the brand of dryer you have, along with the problem, and google it. Then look up whatever the problem might be, such as 'maytag model XZY dryer not drying', or something like that on you tube. .
I'm 70 and I replaced the heating element on my dryer by myself a couple of years ago.

 

[leebee]

Old thread... so old, I can't remember what the problem was, but DH fixed it. It's still running strong, drying at least 5 loads a week! (although I probably just cursed myself...)

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

Old thread... so old, I can't remember what the problem was, but DH fixed it. It's still running strong, drying at least 5 loads a week! (although I probably just cursed myself...)

If I had to guess your old dryer has more life left in it than a new one does now.

We have a dryer from about 2019. Last year our issue was that it would turn on and everything, but it would shut down quickly. It was something was causing it to overheat quickly and it would shut down as kind of a safety thing. DH called a repairman, and he replaced some heating component. I thought we should have just replaced the dryer because the bill was not cheap... but *knock on wood* it did resolve the problem and it has worked since. We also had some kind of "mechanical issue" where it would make a screaming noise when it was running, and one day it just finally quit spinning. That repair didn't cost anything b/c it was still under warranty at that point.


Don't even get me started on how much I hate our washer! It has this "thing" where sometimes it just will not start. It has something to do with the keypad just freezes up. When that keypad freezes up, you literally cannot do anything with it. All I know to do is a bit of "percussive maintenance", sometimes unplug it and let it sit there a while like then plug it back in, and just keep hitting "start over and over".

I really wish we had one of those old fashioned washers that was mechanical instead of having a keypad.

 

[goofyernmost]

I haven't read the entire post, but from what is said it probably means one of the heating elements is broken. A dryer is a pretty easy thing to fix as there are not a lot of moving parts. a lot of disassembly is required but basically simple to do. If you have already had the back off you were almost there. There are wires to the motor the drives drum and the electronics that feed the heating units, unless it's a gas dryer in which case call in a specialist, don't mess with the gas connections. Actually on the drum driven by a narrow little belt. If your sure it isn't that and the belt isn't broken then it has to be the heating element(s). Those can usually be purchased and any hardware store or appliance store with your brand of dryer and are usually plug in.

EITHER WAY ALWAYS UNPLUG IT FROM THE ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT. If it is a giant plug that is a 220 volt electrical outlet. That can ruin your whole weekend if you accidentally make contact with that. As has been said, this is an older thread and by now I'm sure it has been repaired or replaced but hopefully this might be helpful to others.

 

[sam_gordon]

I haven't read the entire post, but from what is said it probably means one of the heating elements is broken. A dryer is a pretty easy thing to fix as there are not a lot of moving parts. a lot of disassembly is required but basically simple to do. If you have already had the back off you were almost there. There are wires to the motor the drives drum and the electronics that feed the heating units, unless it's a gas dryer in which case call in a specialist, don't mess with the gas connections. Actually on the drum driven by a narrow little belt. If your sure it isn't that and the belt isn't broken then it has to be the heating element(s). Those can usually be purchased and any hardware store or appliance store with your brand of dryer and are usually plug in.

EITHER WAY ALWAYS UNPLUG IT FROM THE ELECTRICAL CIRCUIT. If it is a giant plug that is a 220 volt electrical outlet. That can ruin your whole weekend if you accidentally make contact with that. As has been said, this is an older thread and by now I'm sure it has been repaired or replaced but hopefully this might be helpful to others.

Yea, should have read the thread. It's from 2 years ago.