Save Money by Doing These Three Easy Dryer Repairs Yourself

If your family is anything like mine, your lives revolve around laundry.  Where are my pants?  Whose shirt is this?  Is it clean?  Can I wear it?  Is the washer empty?  Can I start a load now?  Where are the mates to all my socks?  Who forgot to start the dryer?  Why are all these clothes on the floor?

And when something goes wrong with your washer or dryer, life can come to a screeching halt.  If you have the time and money, you can always call a repair man and hope for the best.  But unless you have a repairman that you know and trust, it can be very scary (not to mention very expensive!) calling a stranger in to work on your appliances.

So let's talk about three simple problems and what you can do yourself to fix them.  We'll start with the simplest one:

Cleaning out your dryer vent:

 

FYI: your lint screen and your dryer vent are not the same thing.  Your lint screen is that little place that you clean out EVERY time you dry a load of laundry.

A funny story: A good friend of mine's husband is an electrician and all-around handyman.  One day his sister asked him to come look at the dryer she had purchased nearly eight months before, because it just didn't dry the clothes anymore.  She had to run a single load three or four times through to get it dry at all.  So he went over to look at it, expecting that maybe the heating element was out, or something like that.  Nope.  He walked upstairs carrying something that looked a lot like a large rabbit in his hands, and asked her how long it had been since she'd cleaned out the lint screen.  She responded, "What's the lint screen?"  Her dryer worked a lot better after that.

Your dryer hose, on the other hand, is a big fat tube attached to the back of your machine and will need to be removed once or twice a year in order to clean it out.  Don't wait for a problem to start.   Regularly cleaning out your dryer hose will keep your dryer running safely and efficiently.  When lint builds up in the vent hose it not only blocks air flow making your dryer less efficient, but it is also a serious fire hazard.

So how do you do it?   Pull your dryer away from the wall so you have enough room to get to the back side of it.  UNPLUG IT!  Find where the hose attaches to the back of your machine.  It should be a simple screw/bolt that holds it on.  Loosen it, and pull it free from the back of your dryer.

Use a vacuum hose to clean inside your machine and to suction out the inside of the hose where it enters into your wall or floor.  If you have something that blows air (like your vacuum or a leaf blower) you can put it down the hose and try to blow anything out the other end of your dryer hose as well.  Once you have cleaned out the hose, reattach it to the back of the dryer in the same way that you took it off.  Plug your machine back in and return it to its proper position.

Then go to the outside of your house and find where your dryer air exits your house.  There will be a small cover over the hole that you should be able to remove with a screw driver.  You can again use a vacuum hose to clean out the dryer hose from this end.  Then reattach the cover, and you're done!

Look behind your dryer, you'll see the hose and the plug.

When you move your dryer you may discover lots of hidden treasures.

This is what your hose will look like attached to the back of your dryer.

Unscrew this bolt, to loosen the band that holds the hose on.

And pull the hose off.

Now put vacuum out the inside of your dryer, and down the hose in the floor.

Changing out an appliance cord:
For some reason, washers and dryers have a couple of different "styles" of cord configurations.  Three-prong or four-prong. Some with crazy L-shaped prongs and some that look like funny faces - or is that just me and my imagination?

At any rate, sometimes when you move into a new house, or when you buy a new (or hopefully gently used!) washer or dryer, you will go to plug it into the wall and realize that your plug and your outlet just don't match.  ARGGG!  Luckily, this is a super easy fix.

First find out what type of cord you need.  Write it down so you don't forget.  Maybe take a picture with your phone so you can easily compare when you're at the store.  The only thing worse than owning the wrong cord is owning TWO wrong cords.  Then go to the hardware or appliance store and buy the cord you need.

There will be a small bracket pinching your cord on the outside.  This will need to be unscrewed to let your cord free.

Next, look for a small panel at the top of your dryer that comes off easily with just a few screws.  Look inside and find where your cord attaches to your machine.  Take a picture of the old cord attached to the dryer so you will know what order the wires go in.  Remove the old cord from your machine.  This will likely be a simple matter of loosening a few screws or bolts.  Save them, you may need them.  Also, if your cord is still in good condition, save it too.  You may need it in your next house.

Mach up your new cord to the machine (using your picture as a guide).  It is possible that your new cord and old cord will not have the same number of internal wires.  This is okay.  The fourth wire is just a ground wire.  If you have one but no place to put it, just hook it to the metal.  If you don't have one, but feel like you need it, you don't.  Forget about it and move on.  Attach your new cord to your dryer using either the screws/bolts from your old cord or the new ones that may have come with your new cord.  Either set is fine, just use what fits and is easiest.  Now replace the back cover, and you are done!

Why can't they just make life easier by making cords all the same?

Find the metal plate just above your cord.

Take the back plate off.

Each of these little wires are hiding inside your cord! Make sure you match them up right.

You may also have a clamp like this holding your cord in place. Just unscrew it to free your cord from the machine.

Replacing the heating element:
This is a slightly more time consuming repair, but it is still doable.  I've done it three times.  I hate it!  But I've done it.  And you can too.  This is a repair that can vary depending on the type of dryer you own.  Because of this, I highly recommend that you head over to YouTube and find a video of your specific machine (or at least one that looks similar).

But I'll still give you a brief description of how I did this repair on my own machine just to prove to you that you can do it yourself, and to give you an idea of what you can expect.

First  UNPLUG IT!  Next  take off the front.  This sounds easy, but it can be a nightmare (but don't let my bad attitude scare you off!  I'm just really sick of replacing the heating element on my stupid dryer).  Sometimes the whole front comes off, sometimes the bottom comes off separately.  Look over your machine figure out what yours does. When in doubt, YouTube "How to take off the front of Maytag Dryer" (or whatever type of dryer you have).

Once you can see in side, take a minute to examine the horror that is the inside of your dryer.  Mine was packed full of lint.  It really was quite scary.  I had a life sized dust bunny sitting there waiting to catch fire.  My four year old was very sad to learn that the dust bunny I referred to was not an actual bunny living in our dryer.  He looked so disappointed that for half a second I considered running to the store to buy him a bunny just to cheer him up!  Before you go any further, take this opportunity to vacuum out the inside of your dryer and save yourself from a house fire.

Now look around for a long, sqare-ish, metal box.  To me it looks like a big shiny radar gun.  This is what houses your heating element.  There are several different styles, so again, a YouTube video of your specific model will be most helpful.  There may or may not be a front plate on this casing that needs to be removed.  If there is, go ahead and take it off.

Next, look on the side of this metal casing for wires going into it.  Only a few of these need to be removed.  Some are attached to the outside housing, and others go through and attach directly to the heating element.  You'll have to look closely to see which ones need to come off and which you can leave.  Some will slide right off  if you pull them gently with a pair of pliers.  Others are screwed in, and need to be unscrewed.  Take a picture first so you know how they go back on.  Once all the wires are unhooked, you may be able to remove the heating element.  The heating element is a long, flat piece of metal that looks a lot like the inside of a toaster.  It may slide out with a tug.  However, it is possible that you'll need to pull out the whole casing with the heating element inside of it first, and then take the heating element out.

Once you have it out, you put the new one in its place, and follow these directions in reverse to put your dryer back together.  That's it!

Unplug it!

This is the YouTube video I had to watch because I am too stupid to figure out how to take the front off my machine.

Using a butter knife to release the spring.

And easily popping the front panel off.

This is what it looks like inside.

Most of the screws were the same size so I did 90% of the work with one little ratchet.

One tiny screw holds down the front plate to my heating element housing.

Once the front plate is removed, this is what the housing looks like inside.  Gross!

There are a lot of wires attached to the housing, all on the same side.  Not all of them need to be disconnected!

Some unplugged with pliers, others had to be unscrewed.

This is the heating element.  Give it a tug, to remove it from the casing.

This is what the inside of the heating element housing looked like. Talk about a fire hazard!

Okay, so I know it doesn't sound that easy.  But it is doable.  I have never had anyone help me do this or show me how.  I YouTubed it, and then I did it.  And if I can do it, you can do it.

Marcia

P.S. My camera skills limit the quality of pictures I can show you here.  For a more detailed video of any of these procedures, head on over to YouTube.  Search by brand name and repair and you'll find a million videos to further help you through this process.  You can do it!  Good Luck!!

And hey, come back and tell us about it if you do it!  We'll throw a party for you!