If your dryer is not drying like it used to, or maybe not drying at all,
I'm gonna walk you through a few simple things that you can check to make sure
that it's working again.
And if necessary show you how to replace some parts to get it up and running,
just like it should. The first two things we're gonna check,
have to do with ventilation.
Dryers need proper airflow in order to function properly.
So first we'll check the dryer vent in the back and make sure the air is getting
out of the dryer and out of the house. Now,
assuming that's all good. The next thing to check is your lint trap.
And so the lint traps vary on how they're actually set up here.
I've got this one and there's very little lint on here.
I've got a little bit but this one gets cleaned out pretty regularly.
So not an issue, got just about this much,
but sometimes if this hasn't been cleaned in a while,
you might have a huge amount of lint in there that will block any airflow from
going through the system properly. Now,
assuming none of those are actually the main issue that we're dealing with,
we're gonna have to get into the machine itself. And in order to do that,
we want to know what types of parts we might need to deal with.
There's a really simple way to find out what the model and make of your dryer
is. And that's actually right here in the door. So on this label, right in here,
we can easily see that this is a Whirlpool. We can see the model number.
We can see type, we can see voltages and all kinds of other things.
Our washer dryer set is pretty basic. It's about 15 years old,
but by doing some simple repairs like this,
we've been able to keep it going for many years.
What's most likely the issue is this right here.
This is called the heating element.
I've ordered a new one based on the model number that we looked at earlier,
and I'm ready to replace this. I have had to do this before on this dryer,
but guess how much this thing costs? If you buy it on Amazon,
and I'll put links in the description below, this was about $20.
And then just to make sure there's also a thing called a thermal fuse and these
run about five to $6.
So 26 bucks to be able to get this thing up and running and give it another
several years is a lot cheaper than buying a new dryer.
So let's walk you through how to replace these in case that's the issue with
your dryer. Anytime you're looking at working on the inside of the dryer,
make sure to unplug it from the wall,
whether that's the two 20 power cord or the gas line,
if you are using a gas line, make sure to shut off the supply valve first,
before disconnecting,
We got a lot of dust in here.
So the two pieces we're going to be replacing are the thermal fuse,
this little $5 part right here. The other piece is the heating element.
So it's this one right here and you'll see, it looks just like this here.
It's the same piece.
One little caveat on this one is we do have to take out the thermostat here from
the existing one and put it on the new one on the thermal fuse.
I suspect that mine's actually just fine,
but because it was only $5 and I don't wanna open everything back up in case
something goes wrong down the line, I'm just gonna replace that.
You can actually check for continuity to see if there's any issues there,
but once we've got everything opened up back here, we can just take out,
pull it out first.
Again, which wire you put on here doesn't really matter.
Just make sure they're on there snug. Next,
we're gonna move over here to the heating element as well as the thermostat.
And just like before we want to remove all of these plugs,
but one big difference is these plugs here. The order definitely matters.
So you might wanna take a photo of this just to remember exactly what this looks
like and the order that these go on.
And then I'm gonna just go ahead and unattach,
otherwise in the English language known as detach. Okay. There's one,
two and three.
We're gonna go ahead and replace that one.
We will first start by taking out the thermostat here.
So our thermostat here is really just held in place by mounting onto this little
stub right here. And we can just pull this whole thing off. And again,
a screwdriver will make life easier until it comes loose.
And then it's just being held in place by this little finger right here.
And so that just slides through the hole so we can take that whole thing off,
transfer it to our new heating element,
slide on the new thermostat.
And then, and once that's slid in place,
we can slide the little sleeve over the stub here,
and I'm just gonna push this down now. So with that,
we have the thermostat replaced into the new heating element.
One, two, and three on this little one here
With everything, put back together, the power plug back in.
We're ready to try it out. So let's put our timer on
and off we go. Everything should be working so much better now.
And hopefully we get another 15 years out of this machine.