Dryer not drying well anymore (fixed, cleaned sensors)
 

For a week or two now, my wife says our dryer hasn't been drying as fast as it used to. Also, the auto moisture sensing feature has never worked well. I talked with a few people I knew and went to work. The idea being that the temperature sensor (and humidity sensor) has been caked full of lint and needs to be cleaned off to work properly.

So, I went to work. I popped off the front cover.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer001.JPG




Immediately, you can see this thing hasn't been opened up and cleaned in a looong time, probably never has been.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer002.JPG




I initially thought the sensors were in the tube heading to the rear of the dryer.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer003.JPG




So, I pulled it out and disconnected the vent.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer004.JPG




Finding that the elbow piece was full of lint, I went ahead and cleaned it out.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer005.JPG




I also went ahead and stuck the shop vac in the vent pipe in the dryer to clean it out. However, I didn't see any sensors once I had it vacuumed out.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer006.JPG




So, I moved back to the front and started removing more parts. This is the first vent piece that holds the filter in the dryer. Of course, another piece caked with lint to clean out.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer007.JPG




With that vent pice out, I can finally see the sensors on the right side.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer008.JPG

http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer009.JPG




I removed both of them. I believe the black one is the humidity sensor, and the white one is the temperature sensor. The black one was fairly clean yet, but the white one had a bit of lint caked around the edges. I cleaned them both up and reinstalled them.
http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer010.JPG

http://ecorenovator.org/pictures/dryer011.JPG




I'm not absolutely sure that this will fix it, but we shall see in the next week or so.

It has been a week or so since the work was done to the dryer. My wife now reports clothes are drying quickly again. On top of that the auto moisture sensing is now working well again too. I have to imagine that this will save some energy. So, it might be worth the few minutes to check yours out if you haven't ever cleaned up your dryer!

I really hope you replaced that plastic exhaust pipe with either aluminum flex pipe (good) or straight pipe (better). The plastic stuff forces your drier to work a lot harder. It also causes a lot of lint to get got in the exhaust (I think you knew that already :) )

Good work. Nice that you cleaned that up. I sent the URL to my wife and she
asked me "How old is that dryer"? :rolleyes:

I got rid of the plastic pipe this summer and went with the aluminum flex, and ours had a lot of lint too.
A few years ago the squirrel cage in the blower went bad and started making a racket and not turning enough RPMs.
Part 2783 from RepairClinic.com
While I had it apart for repair, I cleaned up a lot of the lint that had leaked into the motor area over the years.. What a mess..
I can't understand how these things can last 20 years, but some do..

Not yet, but its on the list of things to do. I took the shop vac to it since it did have lint in it too. I plan on adding the heat exchanging pipe I drew up in my clothes dryer heat recovery system thread.


I have no idea how old the dryer is. I'm sure its not real new though.

Have you been venting your dryer inside? I've been doing this for 2 winters, it's nice 'free' heat when you can't convince people to use a clothesline. It does cause a bit of moisture, but it's actually welcome since the air is usually so dry to begin with.

BUT!

I think I will also look into servicing my dryer, it hasn't worked as good as it should in some time.

That sounds like a pretty good idea. My basement is really dry in the winter,
and all I would need to built is an air filter to catch the fine lint..

Or maybe not.. Do you get much lint in the air while running the dryer?

Besides getting some waste heat, I think that not pulling in all that cold air is a very good move.

Not really. Theres a pantyhose over it and I check it once a month. It never seems to have much on it. The screen thats physically on the dryer seems to catch 90% of the lint.