Being too cold up north to hang out laundry, the dryer is having problems. It takes twice as long to dry. 1. I cleaned out the all ducts and vents, inside and connected to the dryer. 2. The dryer is balanced. 3. The idler assembly is starting to get loose and will spin and then knock hard after dryer is turned off. 4. BUT, the tumbler is still turning.

IS it the idler system or a heating problem?

-- L. Martin (martin7lee2000@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002

Answers

electric or gas? if gas,, check your dryer vent,, mine came off once,, and it cause the flame "heat" to travel too far so it woundnt heat where it was supposed to. Electric,, check your heating coil. http://www.howstuffworks.com check there also. You can hang your clothes outside in the cold,, they will dry,, freeze first,, then dry. How about an indoor clothes rack?

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), January 25, 2002.

Thermostat

-- Rose in Texas (open_rose@hotmail.com), January 25, 2002.

Husband, who owns his own handyman business, says it may be the heating element if it's not heating.

Please BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL if you're having problems with the dryer! We lost our home in 1983 to wiring behind a running clothes dryer (electric) and I have covered many many housefires caused by clothes driers! So be careful! Make sure you have a smoke detector near your dryer and NEVER EVER leave it running when you go to sleep or when you leave the house!!!

If you have any more direct questions feel free to e-mail Roy, my husband, at my e-mail address here. suzy

-- Suzy in Bama (slgt@yahoo.com), January 25, 2002.

If you are geting little heat hre is one possibility. Do you have fuses on the circuit that the dryer is on? If you do you will have two fuses. One may be bad and the other one good. This happened to us years ago. The dryer will heat, but much less than it should.

Talk to you later.

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), January 25, 2002.

I don't know if this is the problem but, my dryer was taking forever to dry clothes. I thought for sure it was the thermostat and called out a repairman. He checked the thermostat and it was fine. He pulled the dryer away from the wall a bit, and......it worked! I was so embarassed. It seems I had the dryer pushed too close to the wall and the air out of the vent was "stifled". He told me he sees this often. You can check for this, if not, then it could be the thermostat.

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), January 25, 2002.

Annie, same thing happened to me. I gave away a perfectly good dryer because I thought the element had gone bad. I had just pushed it too close to the wall, smashing the hose. I don't feel bad though, the dryer went to a good home, where someone needed it.

-- clove (clovis97@Yahoo.com), January 26, 2002.

Have you ever heard of freeze drying?!!

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), January 26, 2002.

Gee...haven't used a dryer in years and I'm up in the cold north too. Great if you do. Have my 20 year old dryer in the cellar with a mountain of my husbands treasures in front of it. Think it needs a heating element...doesn't heat. Just got use to hanging clothes outside in all kinds of weather or hanging in the cellar with the wood stove on and the wood rack for smaller things. Guess I'm just too cheap to pay the electric company money when I can dry for free !! Good Luck !!

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), January 30, 2002.