I have an electric Kenmore dryer in my house which just made 2 years old. For some odd reason it is not drying the clothes. My wife ran one load of clothes five times and the clothes were still damp. I cleaned out the lint trap ran the dryer again with another load and you can certainly feel the heat coming off the dryer as well as inside the dryer but the clothes are still soaking wet even though the load bas been drying an hour. This has me stumped and it's probably something real simple so if anyone out there knows what I can do to make this thing dry properly I would really appreciate some pointers on this one.

 

Lighten the Load


Is it set on Fluff, Timed dry, or Light/Medium/Heavy ?

It makes a difference.

Try the last one.

 

you could also make sure the vent hose is still connected to the back and also clear from the drier to the outside, if it gets cloged, no airflow.....no dry.

 

Also make sure the washing machine has finished the spin cycle before you transfer them to the dryer.

I usually use Normal "Max" dryness. Takes about an hour and a bit. Timed dry usually ends up taking longer because the laundry still isn't dry at the end of the hour.

 

Once you are sure your exhaust piping is unclogged and you feel air blowing outside, and if thats o.k., I would suspect you have lost the operation of one heating element, causing a 50 percent loss of heat.

 

Check breakes in electrical box one may be blown.

 

Several things could be the cause. Could be one of the temperature sensors. I think there are at least three in the electric dryers. Or could be bad electrical wiring which would lead to high resistance and less heat.

My Norge manufactured dryer gave me similar problems. All the sensors checked out. What tipped me off was that there was one wire that had the insulation brown or even scorched. I replaced the wire and the dryer worked fine again, for a few months. Then it started cooling off too much again. I traced the wire back to the timer box and discovered that one of the lugs was very loose. On closer inspection the lug was burned on the inside of the timer. Replacing it cured the problem, cost was $100 for the timer.

During my studies, I discovered that many of the dryers are really made by just a few manufacturers and just had different labels. MY Norge/Montgomeryward dryer actually had Maytag parts, the timer was Maytag. Do a web search for dryer parts. Most of the websites will show a diageram of the dryer and where the sensors are located.

One other clue I noticed while debugging it was that after I jury rigged the dryer to run with the skins and top off, I noticed that the heater elements would glow nice and red at starup but just a few minutes into the cycle it would turn off and stay off for a long time before cycling back on. I am guessing the time it took was for the electrical connection in the timer to cool down. I started to suspect the timer, becasue every time I closed the top cover the elements would come back on. The only thing in the cover was wiring and the timer, lucky me.

Long story short, if you know how to use a multimeter, and are electrically knowledgable, I would check the sensors, the heater elements and then trace the wiring. In my case burnt wiring was fairly easy to spot and they led me to the bad timer.

Good Luck,

Jim Henderson

 

> many of the dryers are really made by just a few manufacturers

Yea, and Roper is probably the best of them all.

 

i had to fix my electric dryer recently. the heating element burned out due to lack of exhaust flow. my local appliance parts guy said that dryer exhaust is very, very important and the leading cause of failures. if the elements overheat, they will melt, as mine did. my vent line went under the house, 90 degree turn, then vented to the back yard. the entire piping was 80% plugged. now my dryer just vents under my house, much to the appreciation of my cats in the winter.

 

Well I checked my vents inside the dryer and nothing was clogged. I removed the vent from behind the dryer and yet nothing. Then I went outside and checked the vent from the outside. I purchased one of those vent covers that screw into the brick and has a cage on the bottom of the vent to keep critters from crawling within. Well apparently there is like a trap door inside that I never realized was there and last week when I cleaned the excess lint from the cage the door shut without me realizing it. So I just removed the door to keep that from happening again.

I want to thank everyone's input on this issue. I really appreciate every single feedback. Had it been another problem I would certainly have enough information from these forums to fix it right. Thank you very much.

 

I'd hate to give Jim a problem. First - he knows everything about anything, and second - he's so thorough.

Hehe you're my hero, Jim. ^_^

 

Yep!

Nothing like a bunch of us guys talking about laundry secrets

Been doing it since I was 8. (laundry that is )

 

Here's some very good appliance troubleshooting info

http://www.acmehowto.com/howto/appli...diagedryer.php

 

You should keep the trap door installed. It's there for a reason. I found out the hard way, about a vent trap door for the bathroom fan. It was stuck open a bit and since we don't use the downstairs bathroom a lot, the fan seldom gets used. To make a long story short... we ended up with a bee's nest in the vent tubing. Not fun.

Usually, cleaning the tubing out will solve the no drying issue, especially if the dryer is heating good still. If there are any sags in the ducting...if you don't have an immediate outside opening... lint will gather and possibly plug the line up after a while.

 

I turned the dryer on and put the hose from my shop vac down the vent to unclog any debris from inside. I reinstalled the trap door and made sure there would be no was of it jamming in there. So I tried the dryer and everything is cool...so far. Hopefully it will stay that way. I have never known anyone personally to have any problems with their Kenmore appliances and I was hoping I was not the first. Well thanks again.