Clothes dryer fix: any advice?

@Jeruba No you won’t. Dryers are a pain to put back together but there is not much to them and they do go back together. A good repairman will be able to assist but sometimes they’re not so willing if someone has tried first who is not part of their “trade”

Used driers can be had pretty readily secondhand. I say let the son find a short term replacement drier while he figures out how to repair the Kenmore Elite.

Or, bring your clothes to the laundromat until he gets it working. In for a penny…

@Blackwater_Park, well, that’s pretty much what he said. Thanks for the confirmation.

@Ltryptophan, thanks for responding. Yes, he dragged a working one home from the curb in front of someone’s house, where it was left labeled “free.” I used it once, but it is very run down and I didn’t like having my things in it. Now it is parked in my crowded kitchen. Anyway, they can’t both be hooked up at the same time, and he needs to be able to test our unit.

I am getting almost desperate enough to take a load or six to the laundromat.

Meanwhile I am interested in any advice about the repair itself, such as what is likely to be the problem if it’s not the thermistor.

They have huge driers at modern laundromats.

A thermistor is a very non linear temp sensor and as such needs a driver circuit and a processor to make it read properly. They are also very tough so it’s likely a short or something in the control board that reads it. If he puts an ohm meter on the thermistor and it reads in the 10kohm range at room temp it’s something else. The resistance of a thermistor actually goes down as the temp goes up so that throws people sometimes.

I know that just plugging something in will potentially burn up a part needlessly. Our repair guy tried to take a shortcut like that and fried a whole panel.

Thanks, guys. I don’t want to butt in or find fault with him for his good efforts, but I sure do need my dryer back. So I’ll keep your comments in mind.

Well there is one other thing, there is usually a thermal fuse and sometimes they only take out the heating element. If the dryer still powers up some models have a diagnostic mode that will tell you what the problem is or get you in the proximity of it. Your approach is good. I flat out refuse to repair stuff for friends and family, if you don’t do this every day it can take 10x as long as it would for someone who does it for a living. That has the appearance of incompetence but it’s usually not. It’s called just fumbling through it.

@Blackwater_Park, are you a pro?

Nope. I have just fumbled through my share. I was an instrument engineer for a while though so designing thermistor driver circuits was one of my things. I could not tell you how the dryer driver circuit works though.

I’d check the dryer drum in case there is a build up of lint or a jammed piece of fabric that is causing overheating.

Check all circuits with a continuity tester. Many times the (replaceable) elements fail and break which could cause a short and blow out the fuse components that you have already tried to replace.

Trying to apply your advice. Thanks, all.

There was a crazy amount of lint in there, so that’s one thing. He did replace the thermistor, reassembled it, and got it running again, but there’s still no heat. No diagnostics either, I’m afraid: this model does not have a computer in it.

What is the exact model #

Kenmore 110.63954102

The thermal fuse is likely the issue.

@Blackwater_Park, thank you. I believe my son had that hypothesis, but I don’t know if he managed to verify it. Something that looks like that is sitting out on top of the dryer now. He hasn’t asked me to replace it, though. Is $26 a reasonable price for one?

It’s certainly cheaper than a new dryer….or house.

Point taken. Thanks.