Dryer not heating or drying your clothing? If your dryer is all of a sudden not drying your clothes, then we have a few simple DIY fix tips you can try yourself. If the dryer is no longer drying your clothes then the first thing to do is to check and clean the dryer lint filter trap.
How To Fix A Clothes Dryer That Is Not Drying
Check Dryer Lint Filter
We were forced to add that as our first step as there really are some people who do not realize there is a LINT FILTER that must be cleaned before or after each use. Once that is cleaned out, check if the dryer is still NOT drying your clothes.
Check Vent Hose On Back Of Dryer
If that was NOT the cause of the problem, then you will need to inspect the vent hose on the back of the dryer. Commonly this HOT AIR VENT HOSE will become clogged, caked or full of lint that is constantly being removed from your clothing when drying. When this happens your dryer is unable to expel the hot air from within, therefore making it impossible for your dryer to actually dry your clothing in a timely manner or at all.
Common Causes For Dryer To Stop Heating
- The dryer lint screen (lint trap) has not been cleaned (poor or restricted airflow).
- A clogged or kinked (bent) dryer air vent hose (inadequate or no airflow).
- Drum has stopped turning, broken drum drive belt.
- Overheated or bad motor (possible thermal overload).
- Thermal fuse or thermostat (could be caused from dryer air vent hose lint buildup)
- Heating element burnt out.
- Loose electrical plug or power socket.
- Other mechanical issue, fault or malfunction.
Click here for a faster way to troubleshoot your dryer not heating
Clothing Takes Forever To Dry
If your clothes dryer is taking forever to dry your clothes or it is not drying your clothing at all (and you already thoroughly cleaned the lint filter screen), then the first step is to CLEAN OUT THE INSIDE OF THE DRYER VENT HOSE.
First, unplug your dryer from the electrical socket on the wall. Slide the dryer forward very carefully so you can get behind it. Locate the (usually silver colored) air vent hose, and remove it from the wall and the dryer (2 connection points).
Do this by squeezing the clip at both ends and pulling the hose outward. Using a long dryer vent brush or similar, clean out the inside of the air vent hose by removing all of the built up lint and dust looking material.
Clean the area on the back of the dryer and the hole in the wall where the air is vented out. Most of the time the lint will be built up in both of these areas.
Once all of the lint is cleaned out, reattach the vent hose and slide the dryer back in place. Make sure you DO NOT KINK the vent hose when repositioning the dryer as this will cause the dryer to NOT expel the hot air properly.
If you kink the hose the dryer will not function properly and your clothes will take forever to dry. Next, plug the dryer back into the power outlet and run a test. If your dryer is now heating and properly drying your clothes then you fixed the problem. If not, read on…
If you know what Dryer Replacement Parts you need, here is where to get them at a GREAT PRICE and most have FREE shipping.
Here is how much lint that can become stuck in your dryer vent hose.
This much lint in the hose or in the wall, will prevent your dryer from properly drying your clothes.
DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! Dryer air vent hose clogged with lint.
Clean your dryer AIR VENTING HOSE on a yearly basis!
It is the reason your dryer takes forever to dry AND can be a fire safety hazard!
Dryer Has Overheated
At times your dryer can overheat and this can cause the motor that turns the drum to stop working temporarily. There is a safety mechanism built into the motor that makes it stop working if it gets too hot. This is called a thermally protected motor.
Your dryer may seem to be running but the motor will not be turning the drum. If the drum is not turning then the clothes are not moving. Therefore they can not get DRY. So if your dryer motor is NOT turning on but the rest of the dryer works, such as the lights and other mechanical parts, then your motor is probably overheated.
For this, you need to just give the motor some time to cool down. If you suspect that this is your problem then give the dryer about an hour to cool down and run a test after that. If your motor has overheated then you may be overloading your dryer with too many clothes. Try running the dryer with less clothes in it the next time you dry a load and this should remedy the issue.
The solutions above are the most common causes for this specific malfunction. If the explanations above have not been your specific problem, then there can be a number of things wrong. If you feel comfortable you can remove the front panel of your dryer (while unplugged) and look to see if there are any obvious causes of the problem.
A possible loose wire, loose part, burnt area, pieces of the dryer that have come off, fried or burned mechanical switches, etc. If the problem is not visual and you do not know what the issue can be, we recommend going here and posting an appliance repair question to online appliance repair technicians. If all else fails then simply leave a comment or question below and we PROMISE to answer your question in a timely manner.
Other components that could be at fault would be the Thermal fuse, Thermal cutoff, Heating element, Operating thermostat, and High limit thermostat. You can check all of these for continuity with a multimeter. If any are determined bad, remove and replace.
How Does It Work? Basic Clothes Dryer Function
Dryer Parts Schematic Parts Location Diagram Chart
If you still need help, assistance, or answers to fix your Dryer Not Heating problem, ask your
questions over at our Appliance Repair Help page for free answers to fix your broken appliance!
Hello-
My frigidaire electric dryer started making a humming noise 2 days ago, but it was still tumbling and drying the clothes. Yesterday it stopped heating but continued to tumble. Now it will tumble for about 10 minutes without heating and then shut itself off.
Josh,
Your dryer timer more than likely needs to be replaced. Test and see if the timer is supplying power to the heater element on timed dry mode. If the timer is not sending power, it will need to be replaced. You can test the timer with a multimeter. You could chance it and just purchase a new timer as that is really the only thing that supplies power to the heating element.
-RR
My whirlpool dryer will heat up on certain settings but not on others such as timed dry. The dryer barrel turns but doesn’t always get heat. There are no clogs as far as I can see.
Dan,
Best thing to do is open the machine up on the back and do a visual sweep to possibly find an obvious issue. If the filter needs cleaned after each drying load, that is normal but having a large amount of lint will depend on what you are drying.
-RR
I have a dryer that is not completely drying medium load and the vent fiters are needing to be cleaned after almost every cycle !!! Any sugesstions ????
Thanks for your suggestion and sorry for my delay in getting back to you.
It’s not that sort of fitting but like this one – – http://www.tdspares.co.uk/sites/default/files/prodimages/vnt1010.jpg
The problem is the right hand end which doesn’t seem to have a way of keeping the tube attached to the plastic, especially as the hose shrinks slightly with the heat.
Yesterday I put a wire ‘cage’ inside the hose to support it and try to keep it in place, so far so good but seems a poor design, unless I’m still missing something obvious which I surely must be !
I have tested all the thermostats, clycling & high heat. Unfortunately my dryer does not have a choice of temperature settings. There is not an external temperature selector that I can test. My dryer is a 110.96512200 Kenmore. I was wondering if the timer might be going bad. Unfortunately it is not sold at Sears parts anymore. The dryer is about 21 years old. One thing that I noticed is that the wires that lead up to the thermal cutoff fuse on the heater box are charred and look almost fried. Not sure how that happened so as a last ditched effort I’m going to cut them back to good wire and put new terminals on them and see if that helps. If that doesn’t work I’m not sure what to do next.
Ivan,
Heating elements can be tricky depending on age and type we just wanted to be sure it showed continuity. Anyway….. Does your dryer have a choice of temp settings? If so then there are separate thermostats used for each setting. Have you made certain to test and troubleshoot the multiple thermostats? The selector switch or timer control routes the circuit through to the appropriate thermostat so maybe one of them are bad or on the fritz. A thermostat should show continuity when the switch is cool and no continuity when it is warmer than its rated temperature. Hope that may help a little! Let us know!
-RR
Thanks for your reply RR, I removed the heater element from the heater box and when I tested the resistance on the two terminals it measured 0 OHMS. Why is a reading of 0 OHMS bad for a heater element when it still shows continuity?
Ivan
Hi Ivan,
Sounds like your dryer is making your like hell….. Anyway, if your heating element is reading continuity of 0 ohms then it’s bad. Did you have it installed in the dryer when you checked for continuity or did you remove the element first? See here…………….
-RR