Dryer repair 101

The dryer decided to give up the ghost over the weekend and I finally had a chance to check it out. I quickly determined that it wasn't working due to the thing not making any noise. Based off of this acute analysis I decided to take it apart. You know that feeling you get when you're about half way through something and then you realize that you're an idiot when it comes to mechanical stuff... yeah, good times.


Everything was going swimmingly, so I decided it was time to cut myself. You know... to liven things up. My dad always says 'If you're not bleeding, then you're not trying hard enough!' Well, it sounds like something he'd say anyway.


Honestly, I was guessing that there was some kind of fuse that burned out and I was right. There's a thermal fuse right on the heating coil. It's that thing with the green sticker on it. You can get at it by popping the top off the dryer and then breaking all the bones in your hand so you can fit it in this little crevice in order to unscrew that thing.


The best part was that stupid thing cost $37.00!! I decided to obtain one another way so mine cost nothing... but is a 210 F thermal fuse instead of the 260 F one that was there originally. So, I might be replacing it again soon. I ran it on back to back 1 hour jobs so see if it'd die and it was good to go. I ran it empty which might affect the temperature near the fuse, as opposed to being full of undies, but... at least it works.

So, at the end of the day I found out that I can fix stuff, if I have enough free time. I also found out that dryers come with approximately 3 extra screws for some reason. Weird huh?