Our dryer crapped out a few months ago. It wasn’t heating up, so I ordered a new heating element. It came with all new sensors, so I installed those too. One of the wire connectors was a bit loose, but I figured it would be fine.
Today, it stopped again, so I took off the back panel and sure enough, the wire was off. Plugged it back in, but no luck.
It’s probably the thermal fuse, but I’m considering paying the $95 to have my home warranty send someone out to just fix it.
I’m only in the hole $25 so far, so maybe I’ll replace everything again and see.
My suspicion is that there’s something shorting out, though. It’s definitely not a clogged vent, because I’m anal about clearing the trap after every cycle, and the vent pipe to the attic looks squeaky clean inside (and the vent tube from the dryer is clean too.
Edit: while typing this I realized that the loose wire probably caused the short, so I’ll try to replace that sensor before calling someone. Thanks for being my rubber duckie.
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Ours died last weekend. I thought it was the thermistor, roomie thought it was the dryer belt. I was technically capable of fixing it, but uncomfortable as it’s both something I’ve never messed with prior, and it’s a gas dryer. Ended up calling out Sears Repair and it was neither (we called other shops, but none had Saturday hours). Turns out, the part that drove the belt melted after 9 years of operation. The part was probably cheap, but the knowledge was pricey.
Some thermal fuses can be reset by throwing them at the ground as hard as possible. Check continuity with a multimeter to confirm that it’s working again
The funny thing is that when I use a live wire tester, the coils register. That’s what caused me to replace the assembly in the first place
I realized that the loose wire probably caused the short
That’s a good bet. I did that once when I rushed reassembling the dryer once- it worked until I put the back on, until I realized I missed a wire
For what it’s worth I’ve had two types of dryer failures that were repairable. The most common one was “no power” to turn the drum which ended up always being a fried capacitor. The other was no fan, which was due to a worn belt no longer turning from the main drive shaft. Haven’t had no heat issues though but you might be lucky and have fixed one of two problems, so one down and just one more to go!
