On Feb 5, 5:51 pm, Dave22 wrote:
On Feb 5, 3:29 am, wrote:



On Feb 4, 5:47 pm, "James Sweet" wrote:

wrote in message

....
On Feb 4, 1:09 pm, Sam Goldwasser wrote:

writes:
On Feb 4, 10:42 am, wrote:
My Whirlpool electric tumble dryer AWZ241 has failed. Last Friday, the
house's circuit breaker tripped when it was turned on. After
resetting the circuit breaker and trying the dryer, it did not trip
again. The dyer runs but does not get hot. I guess that the heater
and / or an internal fuse has blown.

Any other guesses of possible explanations?

Anyone know how easy this will be to fix?

I am not quite sure how old the dryer is. At least 5 years. It came
with an offer of an extended 8 year guarantee but we did not take it.
Anyway, it might be as much as 8 years old.

I have a good collection of tools (including a multimeter), access to
a reasonably good spare parts shop, good understanding of electricity,
and some experience of working of these devices. For example, I have
successfully changed the drive belt of dryers and repaired the door
switches. I have not yet had any cause to open up this one.

I just checked the local spares shop. They could get me a new element
in a day and it would cost £35. So, provided that is the fault and it
is not too hard to change, it seems worth doing. Now, I need to work
up the energy to take the thing apart.

It's very likely the heating element is the problem especially if the
dryer operated normally the laser time it was used. Replacement
should be straightforward. However, it's worth checking the thermostatsm
and of course for lint buildup which can lead to overheating.
Thanks. Yes, the dryer was working apparently fine last Thursday. I
will check the thermostat as well when I have opened it up. Where
might lint build up except for the filter just inside the door? I
have already checked and cleaned this. There was little on it at the
time of failure, we clean it regularly.

Pull the element and look at it, if it's bad, it'll be obvious.

Thanks. As I said in another post, I hope to take it apart tomorrow
night. If the element is bad, I can order a new one on Thursday and
hope to have it working by the weekend.

--
Sean Ó Leathlobhair

Something else to think about as a possible cause.

Several years ago my sisters drier stopped heating, but kept running
fine.

After several attempts at repair we found that one side of the 220
volt breaker was bad with about a 300 ohm resistance. Thus, there was
no power to the heating element, but since the control circuits and
motor ran on 120 volt that was by chance connected the the good side
of the breaker everything looked "fine"

Just one of those sneaky things that goes wrong.

If you have a voltmeter you can check the outlet to see if it is
working. But do it with the drier plugged in. That will load the
circuit and verify the breaker. If the heater is bad, you will still
measure the 220 volt value.

Dave

Thanks. That is a worthwhile check.

I am in the UK where things are a little different. The supply is
230V (*) only. I expect that both the motor and the heater run
directly from it. Of course, a similar problem of this sort could
still be the explanation.

I should manage the test and survive. As a kid, I repaired old valve
TVs with live chassis. They rectified the 240VAC (*) supply and hence
ran at 340VDC. You would get a nasty shock if you were not very
careful.

(*) Not a mistake, the UK standard used to be 240V. Most of the rest
of Europe was 220V and we compromised on 230V. I think that the
tolerance of the new standard was large enough that nothing really
needed to change.

--
Sean Ó Leathlobhair