Mr. Fix-it

"We know what to do when it rains." That's a quote applicable to this situation. A few weeks ago my wife and I noticed the dryer wasn't doing it's job- drying the clothes. It was running, just not drying. We thought it might be time for a new dryer- so I started researching and didn't like what I saw- high prices. We have a big dryer, and I couldn't see downsizing. So I start "experimenting". I thought it had to be something simple. I took apart the dryer until it didn't look like a dryer anymore, I check electrical connections, I put it back together, I turned it on, it ran- but it didn't get hot. Luckily, in my autopsy of what I thought was a dead dryer, I found a folded up piece of paper located behind the "control panel". It turned out to be an assembly drawing of the dryer with all the parts numbered and labeled. I looked over it briefly and set it aside thinking it wasn't worth trying to fix this dryer anymore- it is about 10 years old and it came with the house when we bought it.

A few days went by and we shopped for dryers. I really didn't want to buy one. I looked over the assembly drawing again and came up with one possible solution- heating element. The dryer ran, just didn't get hot. So I called up Sears and ordered the part. It came, I installed it, it worked! I was really excited since it had only cost $60.00 instead of hundreds for a new dryer. The dryer actually worked much better than ever before now. Upon examining the old element I could see it had actually caught on fire at one point from all the lint built up in the floor of the dryer over the years. Now here's some advice- clean your dryer out occasionally. On ours there's a panel on the front that you can take off and expose the inside of the "box" I vacuumed three or four loads of lint from the inside of the dryer. Taking apart the dryer also let me clean out the parts individually. I found money and a gym ID card from the previous owner of the house in the compartment that holds the lint screen. It really helps the efficiency of the dryer to have it all cleaned out too.
So all was good again...for about three weeks. Suddenly, while drying a load the dryer just quit. This was bad. Could be anything I thought. I again took the dryer apart and started tinkering. I thought I must have knocked something loose while working on it before and the vibration of the dryer released some connection completely. No luck- must be time for a new dryer I thought again. I went back to the assembly drawing. There were two fuses listed: a thermal cut-off, and a thermal fuse. Apparently, these are safety parts that shut the dryer down if it's getting too hot. You can't tell if the fuses are blown by looking at them- they don't even look like fuses. I ordered the parts again hoping I wasn't wasting my time. When they came in I installed them and immediately the dryer worked. I was really happy. I was still only up to $100.00 total investment for the new parts. The satisfaction of repairing something I previously knew nothing about was very cool.
I'm not certain, but my theory about the fuses blowing is that the new element wasn't a good match with the old fuses. The fuses/thermal cut-off were worn out and the extra heat of the new element just pushed them over the edge.
It was a great learning experience that I hope to not have again for a long time.