Tumble-dryer repairs

[drossall]

Has anyone repaired a screech from a tumble dryer? It's locating it with certainty that's the issue. I think it's probably the motor bearings, which I gather can be replaced with the right tools. The rear bearing seems fine. Could be the front, which I think is just some sort of pad, however - looks pretty worn.

But when I rotate the motor spindle by hand, it makes some noise and does not seem smooth.

It's a Hotpoint, and doesn't have the second, tensioning pulley.

[Brucey]

the motor won't feel perfectly smooth in any event if it is a brushed motor, because of the brushes. Turning the motor backwards often knocks the edges off the brushes too.  However brushes don't often squeal (loudly, anyway), so the problem itself lies elsewhere. If the motor feels rough to turn even with the brushes out, the bearings may be shot.

 Often (in washing machines and driers) if there isn't a dry bearing somewhere, the problem is actually that the drum is cracked and is just about to break. The noise then is usually the drum rubbing where it shouldn't.  Another thing that can make weird noises in machines of this sort is if the suspension (where fitted) is faulty. This can make noise in its own right or cause rubbing and squeaking.

Finally check the belt tension and the pulleys carefully; too tight and the main pulley (on the back of the drum) can fail on its spline or even crack up. [edit; I forgot to mention, if the belt is too slack and/or the drum is draggy for some reason, you can get squeals from the belt that way...]

All this stuff is often made for peanuts and doesn't last forever. Maybe worth buying something like the 'Haynes washer drier and tumbledrier manual' for this sort of job.

  BTW tumble drying may be very convenient but in terms of saving the planet it is a complete abomination; the amount of fuel that is burnt to provide electricity which is then  used for low grade heat (much of which is simply wasted by being burped outdoors; only a few machines have better than  token heat exchangers on the outlet) is astonishing. Financially it can be a bit nuts too; it often works out that in a year or two, you spend a lot more on electricity to run the thing than it cost you to buy it in the first place.

cheers

[rogerzilla]

I use mine for about half the year, two or three loads a week.  On half heat (it always is - makes no apparent difference to drying time).  Costs about £13 a year at 15p/unit, whuch is preferable to the abhorrent practice of hanging damp stuff around the house (drying stuff in front of an open fire is ok because the damp is sucked up the chimney - but that's another whole world of inefficiency).

Vented dryers are measured on a different efficiency scale to condenser dryers, by the way - a C-rated vented dryer is better than a C-rated condenser.  Condenser dryers are awful anyway, mainly sold to people who can't put a hole through the wall or a hose out of the window.

[drossall]

I'm pleased to report a successful repair. It's taken a while, mostly waiting for parts to arrive. I gave up on the first set of bearings, which were coming from somewhere in far-distant eBay-land, and ordered another from RS. Of course, both sets turned up on the same day

Point taken on electricity usage. We do try to hang things outside whenever possible, but like RZ it's very difficult when the house is full of wet things. And yes, it's a vented model and yes, I drilled a hole through the wall for it (or at least, for a predecessor) when we moved in.

[rafletcher]

OT somewhat, but a follow up to RZ's post. We don't have a tumble dryer, partly because we have no room for one but mainly because we don't like them - we could if we'd wanted to have bought a washer/dryer, but they are horribly expensive and unreliable. We do have a washing machine with a high spin speed (though their own data suggests much over 1200rpm isn't going to show a vast improvement in moisture removal).  We routinely spin the washing twice, and yes, if it's wet out and we have had to wash, we use the radiators to dry it out enough to go into the airing cupboard. We don't get problems with condensation, perhaps the open fireplace helps with ventilation. 

We are unusual in our community, our washing goes out the majority of the time throughout the year (my wife's home every day). One neighbour does put hers out (we can tell by the disgusting smell of detergent "perfume") - but never underwear  . The other has not once in twenty years put any laundry outside.  The same goes for the other 6 or 7 gardens we can see into. It seems to apply to the majority of the households in the  village. That's when the energy waste cuts in - year round usage when there is perfectly free fresh air available. I just don't understand it myself.

[igauk]

Or if you have the ceiling height get yourself a pulley. Most of our clothes dry overnight and although it's in the kitchen clothes don't pick up food smells. They're still a common feature in Glasgow tenement flats.

[andytheflyer]

Or if you have the ceiling height get yourself a pulley. Most of our clothes dry overnight and although it's in the kitchen clothes don't pick up food smells. They're still a common feature in Glasgow tenement flats.

Blimey.  I thought we had the only one!  My MiL had one in her Yorkshire Dales kitchen, over the Aga.  When we married (>40 years ago), my wife insisted on having one too.  We now have a garage (now too narrow for modern cars) which doubles as my workshop and the drying room.  It has a storage heater on Economy 7 and all our washing goes in there when the weather prevents me hanging it outside, and ironed clothes go on it overnight to air.  It's a brilliant bit of kit.  I bought the brackets and the pulleys, and shaped up the wooden laths myself.

We park our wet dog next to the heater too, after a wet walk, for an hour.  No longer have an AGA, sob...….

[Kim]

OT somewhat, but a follow up to RZ's post. We don't have a tumble dryer, partly because we have no room for one but mainly because we don't like them - we could if we'd wanted to have bought a washer/dryer, but they are horribly expensive and unreliable. We do have a washing machine with a high spin speed (though their own data suggests much over 1200rpm isn't going to show a vast improvement in moisture removal).  We routinely spin the washing twice, and yes, if it's wet out and we have had to wash, we use the radiators to dry it out enough to go into the airing cupboard. We don't get problems with condensation, perhaps the open fireplace helps with ventilation.

The drying of laundry (on racks, rather than radiators) is barely detectable on my humidity monitoring graphs (I have a sensor in each of the rooms).  This is in a late-1800s terrace which has just been upgraded to double glazing, so I'm keen to see if the reduction in draughts makes a difference.

Our room humidity is mostly determined by weather, cooking/bathing (which are transient - the background level is usually restored after a couple of hours), and how much the central heating is used (which is cumulative).

I conclude these old houses are acceptably dry if you heat them as intended (they were, of course, designed around open fires in the occupied rooms), they're just woefully inefficient.

We are unusual in our community, our washing goes out the majority of the time throughout the year (my wife's home every day). One neighbour does put hers out (we can tell by the disgusting smell of detergent "perfume") - but never underwear  . The other has not once in twenty years put any laundry outside.  The same goes for the other 6 or 7 gardens we can see into. It seems to apply to the majority of the households in the  village. That's when the energy waste cuts in - year round usage when there is perfectly free fresh air available. I just don't understand it myself.

Not hanging things outside (where they get covered in random crap from builders' fires, sycamores and critters, and you have to pay attention to whether it's raining) does not equal tumble-drying.  In summer we just continue using our indoor racks, the only difference is that things dry much quicker.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I once read a brief sociological history of laundry. IIRC it went something like this:
Going back to the Middle Ages, lords and their retinues had washing done for them and it was then spread out on bushes to dry. The peasants probably didn't do much laundry, because they wouldn't have anything to wear while it was drying.
As clothes became less expensive, more people started washing them. At some point, someone figured it was a good idea to dry them on ropes stretched between posts or buildings rather than spreading them on bushes or trees.
The industrial revolution made clothes cheaper and also made it easier to wash them, by industrialising soap production. Now everyone could afford to wash their clothes, at least sometimes. But it also made lots of dirty smoke, which dirtied the clothes you'd just washed. Rich people (who owned the smoky factories) moved away from them, into the countryside and onto the higher and upwind areas of towns. Here they could continue to hang their washing out to dry. Poor people, huddled near the factories and in the downwind areas, had to dry their clothes indoors to stop them getting covered in soot (probably from domestic heating as well as industry). So during the 19th century, clothes drying on a line was a sign that you were at least middle class.
Tumble dryers became available from the 1940s on, coinciding with moves to reduce air pollution from industry and from domestic fireplaces in towns. So it now became a sign of poverty to hang your washing outside to dry, as it showed you couldn't afford a tumble dryer. Improvements to factory chimneys and various clean air acts meant that smuts were no longer such a big concern (probably the fashion for coloured rather than white clothes helped).

[The Family Cyclist]

And now it's a sign your middle class and (pretend) to care about the environment, preferably showing off reusable nappies

[Kim]

I wonder if we're going to see a rise in tumble-drying in response to more people (again, the well-off middle class) having solar panels and wanting to make full use of their 'free' electricity?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Or in response to more frequent rainfall from a changing climate?

[Ham]

I do recall that in Tyneside in the seventies, you could end up with dirty washing when you hung it out, with black spots of soot deposited.

[drossall]

When I started this thread, I was at least thinking that I was being environmental by not throwing out a tumble dryer over a few quids' worth of bearings

A colleague of my wife's apparently bought a new one because of the same problem. You can control it from your mobile phone, apparently. I told my wife that she can do that with ours - she just has to ring me and tell me to switch it on...

[Morat]

Owning a young child of nappy/pant/bed wetting age and living in a freezing old cottage made a tumble drier mission critical for Mrs M and I a few years back. With us both working, the chances of leaving washing out in the morning and coming back to nice dry anything were pretty slim.

We're less dependent now and use a washing line at weekends. Tumble driers seem to be quite a divisive subject, but they're not just used by planet destroyers. IME they're not always a sign of wealth. They can also be a sign of time poor parents working as many days as possible to make rent.

[Mrs Pingu]

Interesting take here. https://www.unhumid.com/dehumidifier-vs-tumble-dryer/

Even if we did have a tumble dryer (which we don't anymore) I reckon we'd still need a dehumidifier.
It's too warm to put the stove on, but it's been pishing with rain so much that the current RH is 70%, and I haven't even started drying clothes indoors yet.

[De Sisti]

I've had my Creda tumble dryer since 1991. In that time I've had the belt that
turns the drum replaced (about 2004) and a condenser unit changed in 2016.
Did the last repair myself (after consulting a Youtube video). Belt replacement
and labour cost at shop £35, condenser unit £28. The dryer originally cost £149.
It gets used about once a week.

[ian]

I can't be bothered putting out washing to dry because I'm in principle rather lazy. Plus I have traumatic childhood memories of forever being sent out in the rain to 'fetch the washing in.' Anyway, the practice only encourages people to light bonfires. Oh, and our neighbour has a woodstove anyway, her chimney being level with our house.

We don't have a tumble drier – never had one. Our first place had a kitchen so small that it would have laughed at any attempt to squeeze another appliance in*. Our last place was a three-story house and had a large inner stairwell that was perfect for drying laundry. In this place, we put stuff on racks in the spare room by the big sunny window and radiator. We usually run a dehumidifier as it seems to speed things up especially overnight. The RH is pretty low up there anyway. Anyway, the dehumidifier running overnight dries the entire load and seems to harvest a couple of litres of water to sate the thirst of our many houseplants. This also leaves even more room in the kitchen to store things we never use, because every family of two needs at least 50 mugs and enough plates and dishes to cater for an army battalion.

*that tiny house was literally described as spacious in the EA blurb for a few years back when it came on the market again – also yours the better part of £500k, probably more now. Honestly, you had to move a bed to open a wardrobe.

[ElyDave]

I wonder if we're going to see a rise in tumble-drying in response to more people (again, the well-off middle class) having solar panels and wanting to make full use of their 'free' electricity?

Bingo - that's how it works in our house
"is it going to be sunny today?"
"OK I'll do soem washing and use the tumble dryer"

Otherwise we have two collapsible racks which sit either in the utility room, or occaisionally out on the back patio

[De Sisti]

The RH is pretty low up there anyway.

What's an RH?

Edit: I hate it when people post on forums with abbreviations that aren't in common use (in my opinion) that readers are expected to know.

[ian]

Relative humidity.

[Feanor]

The RH is pretty low up there anyway.

What's an RH?

Edit: I hate it when people post on forums with abbreviations that aren't in common use (in my opinion) that readers are expected to know.

As ian says, Relative Humidity.
The amount of moisture in the air as a percentage of the maximum it can hold at that temperature.

Simple explanation:

Air can hold a certain amount of moisture.
The amount it can contain depends on the temperature.
Warm air can hold more moisture than cool air.

If the RH is low, then the air is not saturated, and can easily hold more moisture, and things can dry out.
If the RH is very high then the air is saturated, and can't hold any more moisture and things won't dry.

For any given RH, then increasing the temperature will lower it, since for the same moisture content, the air can now hold more.
Dropping the temperature will increase the RH, since for the same moisture content, the air can now hold less.
If you drop the temperature enough, RH gets to 100% then the air can no longer hold the moisture that it already has has in it.
You have hit the Dew Point, and the water drops out and condenses on the cool surfaces.

This is what you see on the cisterns of unheated toilets, where there is condensation up to the cool water level.
And when you see mist down in a river valley, but it's clear higher up: Cool air has tumbled down into the valley, and the mist level is where the temperature profile has hit the dew point, and the cooler air lower down can't hold the same moisture so it drops out as vapour making clouds / mist / fog.

[Kim]

It's also why all the ventilation in the world won't keep your tent dry.

[drossall]

A propos nothing in particular, I meant to remark on the amount of fluff I found in the machine when I stripped it down. It was packed from floor level to the bottom of the drum. I was pulling it out in handfuls.

Which of course is probably why the bearings dried out. If you do have a tumble dryer, consider cleaning it out periodically.

[tonycollinet]

I once repaired the belt tensioning wheel of a dryer with half a cap from a mascara tube. It lasted about 4 years - so I did it again with the other half