How to Save Money and Prolong Your Dryer’s Life

Recently, we had to call someone out to repair our dryer. It was only a year old and we should not have been having problems with it. About a month later, it quit again. Now we were really furious. But the repair man left a flyer he had with tips to prolong your dryer life. He even went over some of them with us. He said our dryer was fine but we had been abusing it. So in hopes of saving others from having the expense of unneeded dryer repairs, I am sharing the hints he shared with me.

The first step is to install your dyer appropriately. He advised that when installing the dryer, people should not use cheap plastic vents. We had purchased cheap plastic vents. The best ones to use are the rigid ones or flexible metal vents. We also had let the vent get caught under the dryer. it should be free of the bottom of the dryer and have plenty of space behind the dryer. Ours was crowded up against the wall. Of course, he advised not to let anything impede the airflow. This is what happened when the vent got stuck. Our dryer wasn’t getting enough air flow and it burnt out the motor. In other words, our dryer overheated. It is also important to check the vent cap to make sure air is flowing.

The second stop is to maintain your dryer after installing. The dryer lint should of course be cleaned after each cycle. We were doing this, but there is an added step. He left us with a flexible brush that should be used inside the lint trap, to remove any excess lint that the lint trap missed. This should be done at least once a week, if you use your dryer frequently. He suggested to periodically check the legs, because if they are misplaced, the dryer can malfunction. He suggested doing this once a month. He also advised to pull the dryer out every month or so and clean behind. Not only does this keep the vent free of debris, it also cuts down on any chance you might have of a fire igniting behind the dryer. Our repairman stated that this happens more often than you would think. Most home owner policies he stated, would not pay for any damage incurred due to lint behind a dryer and the resulting fire. They would consider this to be neglect on the home owners part. That made perfect sense to us. He also suggested to check the power cord every month and make sure it is in good working order. He said to make sure there weren’t any frays in the cord or nothing was blocking it from the wall outlet.

Where was my dryer repairman when we needed him? If we had been smarter, we could have saved the couple of hundred dollars we spent on unneeded repairs. I hope this keeps others from having to put out extra cash that can be better spent..