As if we haven't been busy enough, Wife said the dryer was not working all of a sudden. I have not been impressed with that machine since we bought about 2-3 years ago. We normally have to run it twice to get a dry load, which we have just become accustomed to doing it. I normally do our clothes during the week, usually on Wednesday and I keep up with it as I move back and forth downstairs with the washing room door open, so I hear when it turns off.
Because we have been so off by all the extra stuff going on, I fell behind and Wife was trying to wash over the weekend. I wasn't even aware she was doing this, but she said Sunday that she had restarted the dryer four times to get one load dry. I am always skeptical, especially because I have not had that trouble, and this was the first time she was running the machine in a while. I then tried washing a small load to keep up with it and see and I had to agree, there weren't even heavy towels in the load, and it took three rounds to get it dry.
She was sure it was the heating element because it's the one part inside the dryer she knows of. I wasn't so sure; I ran it for a minute and stuck my head in it and the clothes was already warm and muggy. My thought was that the lint collector/exhaust was plugged up and not allowing it to breathe right. I didn't want to pull it away from the wall last night (Tuesday night), but I wasn't going to be able to relax until this gets resolved, worst case scenario, we just go buy a new one. I looked at a Youtube video and sure enough, the guy said if the clothes are heating up, it is probably a problem with the exhaust being plugged up, start with the lint collector. I clean it every time I run it, so I know that wasn't the problem. I was envisioning the port taking the exhaust to be filled with lint past the lint filter and was really wanting to open it, and luckily, the guy had the same machine we have and showed how to open it, really easy, like 10 screws total. I was impressed that the machine was as clean as it was, very little lint past the filter. The next suggestion he had was that it could be the machine to wall tubing. This did look suspect as could be. I believe this tubing has been with us since our first house and looking in it, light was barely coming through, and that was after I unfolded it. I decided this would be my attempt to fix things. After dropping off Mijo at school today, I ran to Lowe's, bought new elbows, 90-degree 4-inch tubes, and a small piece of adjustable tubing. It was a pain to get in there, behind the dryer, with the washer next to it, the room is designed to fit both machines side by side and wall on the outside of them. Still, I moved them around and got behind them. This time connecting them, I did a much better effort than the first time. The first tube was already all stretched out and crushed in several places.
I am really hoping the dryer can dry the load in one cycle, but I will settle if it can do it in two. If this doesn't work, then I need to look at the wall and the port from the wall to the outside. The washroom is inside the house with the small downstairs bathroom between it and the outside wall. I think there is a tube running in the space where the tub sits leading out, it's the only thing that makes sense to me. Maybe there's a bird's nest in the exhaust housing, but I did stick a cleaning tool in there and didn't see any activity.
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