On 17/11/2019 15:19, T i m wrote:
On Mon, 11 Nov 2019 21:40:07 +0000, Steve Walker
wrote:

snip

If our experience is at all common, it is poor design, but perhaps not
an obvious problem. They presumably did not consider that a failure of
one part would cause a build-up of fluff that could then be pulled in by
the fan and onto the heater elements.

Our old Zanussi appears to *suck* air in from the outside world *via*
the heater elements, draw it though the drum and front filter before
*blowing* it out the exhaust plumbing (up some rigid plastic trunking
and out though the wall).

That's basically what we had, although our fan was between the heater
and the drum. The problem was the rigid pipe from front to back was not
properly held, came loose and discharged fibres, that had managed to
escape the filter, underneath the machine. That meant that they built up
there, until sucked, en-masse, into the heater elements.

I do have to clear the exit grill and flexi-hose between machine hand
rigid exit duct once-in-a-while and generally clean the internals of
the machine when I'm in there replacing a belt, pulley, spigot or
motor bearings etc.

The coiled wire heater elements (like a fan heater) has generally been
pretty clear every time.

Ours certainly wasn't. I took to checking the pipe and cleaning out
underneath every fortnight, until we eventually got rid of it (it needed
a new heater (one element worked, but the other had failed where it had
had burnt fibres on it) and the front slipper pads for the drum needed
replacing. With that and the repeated exhaust problems, we decided to
replace it - which also gave us the opportunity for a larger capacity one.

SteveW