Hi fellow DIYers,
Today I wanted to share the fun I had fixing my dryer the other day!
The other day I was talking with 
I know that many people here on Hive don't use a clothes dryer, they just hang their clothes out to dry outside on a line or on a wire rack or something. I did that as well when I was in Italy years ago and it was good except when it was cold and things don't dry properly lol. For us, we have always had a dryer because it's just more time efficient to have the dryer along with the washing machine so things get done quickly. Dryers are great, except when they aren't!
I've always been curious about our dryer, just from the standpoint of where the different parts are and how they work. I've fixed the appliances in our house a couple different times for various reasons. Our old washer and dryer had some issues and I thankfully was able to fix it for the most part, until the washer motor died and then we had to get a new set lol.
This was the first time I've had to do anything to the pair we've got and I'm looking forward to continuing that streak as long as I possibly can, for the simple fact that it is difficult when the things aren't working haha. This wasn't too bad though, in all honesty! When we turned the dryer on one day when we were doing loads of laundry, it absolutely didn't sound right. It sounded like something was stuck somewhere so I knew that I had to jump into action and get to work! Thankfully I also had my trusty sidekick with me, my son, to also learn along the way.
Because this was the first time I've done anything to the dryer besides take lint out of the thing, or clean the lint pipe, I was pretty interested to see how the various things worked. This model is a fair bit different than the last one we had which was nice, so there were things in different spots. I like being able to learn and understand how these things work out of curiosity but at the same time - getting myself prepared for when things break and I have to fix them!
I took the opportunity to get myself familiar with how the various pieces worked and looked. I wasn't completely sure where the sound was coming from and next time we have something like this happen - I am going to have my son turn the dryer on while I stand behind it to figure out where the noises or smells are coming from. We were in front of the dryer when we were hearing it so we didn't have a good idea of what was going on. We tried to just take the back panel off it and clean around and try again but that didn't work, we had to go deeper.
I ended up having to take off the panel that covers the blower motor, that sucks the lint out and air of the dryer and pushes it out the vent pipe towards the open air. This ended up being the issue! Somehow we got a massive clump of lint somehow sucked into the motor and it was turning poorly with that obstruction in the way, and once I saw this big chunk of shit where it shouldn't be, I immediately knew that this was likely the culprit. The dryer was operating fine until one load was taken out so somehow a big chunk of lint made it's way in there.
It was cool to take the panel off and see the inner workings of the thing. I don't think or hope that I would have to replace anything like the blower motor but knowing what it looks like, where it is and how it connects to the lint catch at the top was really interesting! I love digging into things like this, it's a lot of fun haha and just a part of my nature I guess!
While I was down there, one of the things that I made sure to identify was the heating element. On the electric dryers like the one I've got here, the heating element is what generates the heat. The coils here get a bunch of electricity and it produces a substantial amount of heat. This heat is then pushed up into the dryer and that's what ends up drying the stuff. For dryers like this, the most frequent thing that is going to happen is the heating element is going to die or break. Knowing where the heating element was is a great thing because now I know what to do when the dryer eventually stops heating the clothes. I don't want that to happen of course, but it's inevitable. Thankfully though, the heating elements are usually a pretty inexpensive part to replace! You can often get them for 40 or 50$ and you've got yourself almost a brand new dryer.
Of course I had my little buddy here with me along the whole way! He was a great help and made sure to get things back into place. I had him leave the room when I was flipping the dryer over on its side but I made sure to keep him around, show him the various parts of the dryer as I understood them and let him do as many things as I could.
I want to foster the same passion and curiosity that I've got. Sometimes it's difficult because I don't know what is going on with something and I have to figure it out, which makes it a little tricky for me to think and explain at the same time. I feel bad that I get a little short with him sometimes during these things, and I absolutely admit that. I'm not perfect but I am definitely trying to get better at keeping my cool and being understanding that he is doing as much as he can to learn about these things but also share in my interest of DIY.
Having the skills, knowledge and confidence to do these things is so important to teach our kids! I know that there is a pretty significant gap in basic household knowledge with a lot of people my age and years younger because the parents didn't know, were too busy or just simply didn't want to teach the kids these things. We now have the issues where people are sadly helpless and all of the negative consequences associated with that. By doing these things and involving my son as much as I can, in as positive of a way as I can, I am making sure that he grows up with the various pieces of knowledge and skill that I know are going to be absolutely crucial in so many ways for him as he gets older and eventually breaks out into the world.
One of the most important things it takes to do these things is confidence! I am confident in my ability and knowledge to give it my best shot at trying to figure out what is happening. I may not be able to fix everything, or it would be a waste of time to do some things compared to the cost but the best thing is to have confidence in our abilities and to share that with the kids. I know he's going to go far with these basic life skills, as they've served me pretty well so far!
-CmplXty. Real human written content, never AI.
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