DIYbanter - View Single Post

wrote:
I just moved into a house with an older (maybe 6-7 years old)
washer/dryer set. I was able to do one load of laundry in the dryer,
but since then the dryer trips the breaker every time I use it after
running for maybe 2 minutes. I tried lowering the heat but even at the
lowest heat setting it tripped. I finally set it to "no heat" and was
then able to run it for a full cycle without tripping the breaker.

Any ideas on what the problem could be? Is there something I can do to
determine if it's a problem with the appliance or with the circuit
breaker?

1) Use a clamp-on ammeter to determine if the dryer truly is drawing the amount
of current.
2) Rig up a load resistor drawing "near" the breaker current to test the
breaker.

or (the cheap & easy test)

3) Change out the breaker. They're inexpensive and trivial to replace.