Bad Dryer

When I first moved into my house years ago and bought my own first dryer, I hooked it up. I loaded up my clothes, changed my settings and hit start. I heard the buzzer go off later and checked my clothes. They were damp. I didn’t get it. I got a dead dryer? I was about to get frustrated when my father asked if I checked the breaker. Apparently, the breaker the dryer was on was two sets of breakers instead of two tied together. He was right, a breaker was tripped. It was enough to spin, but not to heat.

Fast forward to yesterday. Danielle has been using the dryer, but she’s been noticing that it’s been drying less and less. I check the exhaust. It’s practically clogged tight. I clean it out and test it again. No go. Still not heating. So I pull the dryer out and look in the shop. I have two dryers from who knows where so I pull one of those out. I drag it all the way up front and plug it in. I change the settings and hit start. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Doesn’t even spin. I think great, this was the dead one of the bunch. I go get the other. Plug it in (all the while, I am thankful that the plugs are the same and I don’t have to change out cords), change my settings and hit start. Nothing again. I’m about to get frustrated. I start tearing apart the back thinking I’ll take the heating elements out of one and try it in the one I know that spins. While doing this, I grab my voltmeter. I decide to test the plug. I cross the two poles. 80V? That can’t be right. I try each pole to ground. One has 120, the other, nothing. So I go to the breaker box. I try the two poles. Let’s just say it’s not 220V. So I test each breaker separately to discover that the top breaker is just not working right. I take the breaker out and use an ohm meter. Nothing. Bad breaker.

Now to drag all the dryers back to where they came from. Ugh.