Dryer how does it work

Iron dry means clothes may still feel a little damp, but they'll be easier to iron. If you're putting them away for the winter though, you might want to use an extra-dry program. Heat pump dryers typically use the same motor to drive the drum and fan, which makes it difficult to allow for reverse tumbling, as reversing the rotation of the drum would also reverse the fan, pushing hot air backwards through the dryer, potentially damaging it, and blowing cold air onto your clothes.

Without reverse tumbling, large items like sheets and towels can wad up into a tight ball or laundry sausage, without drying properly. Manufacturers try to get around this problem by reversing the drum for short periods — say, 30 or 90 seconds — in an attempt to untangle their contents, but this may not be sufficient, and you may need to turn the laundry sausage around manually mid-cycle to get it to unwind. For wet clothes to become dry the moisture has to go somewhere.

The way your dryer handles this has a big impact on home comfort — vented dryers, as the name suggests, vent hot, wet air straight into the laundry. If you don't have great ventilation this can rapidly make it feel like a sauna, and the problem's compounded because we use our dryers more on rainy humid days.

Heat pump dryers, on the other hand, are condenser dryers. This means the moisture is collected in an onboard water tank instead of vented into the room. You do have to occasionally empty the tank but you can use this water on your garden, or you can plumb the dryer into a drain. If you have a poorly ventilated laundry but can't justify springing for a heat pump dryer or a condenser dryer for that matter then look for a vented dryer, with an option for ducting.

A ducting kit allows you to direct the hot, wet exhaust from your vented dryer straight outside. It depends on how much you use your dryer.

If you're running it daily then in dollar terms a heat pump dryer will be the way to go. If you only use your dryer occasionally, a cheap vented model makes more financial sense. Venting also has length requirements and depending on where installed, may require turns in the vent pipes. The best venting is the shortest and straightest path to the outside. At the end of the vent on the outside of the home is an exhaust hood or roof cap, depending on where the vent exits.

The venting material and the exhaust hood needs to be free and clear of lint and debris, such as tree limbs, bushes, bird nests, and rodent nests. See installation instructions for venting requirements. Your washer's motion produces a lot of lint, which the drying technology helps remove. The air flow in the dryer is passed through a filter and then vented to the outside. This filter collects a large amount of the lint from the clothing.

Lint buildup can also happen in the venting to the outside, so it is important to clean the vent from the back of the dryer about every 6 months to 1 year. If the full length of the vent is inaccessible to clean yourself, you may have to hire a professional vent cleaning service. Lint is combustible, and can be hazardous if not thoroughly cleared from the vent.

Cleaning the vents allows for full air flow, which in turn will allow your dryer to run more efficiently. Clothing will dry faster, saving you time and money on your energy bills. If you would like to download or view product literature for your appliance, please visit our Manuals and Literature page.

Thank you for your inquiry. Our chat service hours are Monday - Friday from 8 a. At the back of the tumbler is a flange , connected to a simple bushing that allows the flange to spin. The back of the tumbler bolts to this flange. The front of the tumbler rides on two white plastic pads that are mounted to the top of the support structure.

This dryer has no electronics in it at all. Instead, a system of gears , cams , electrical contacts and motors forms a sort of mechanical computer. Let's start by looking at the cycle control knob. By turning this knob to various positions, you can control both the type of cycle and the length of time it runs. Let's take a look at what is inside this switch.

Here is a view of the back of the cycle switch. Attached to the back is a little motor. The picture below shows the motor unscrewed from the switch. The tiny gear on the motor turns very slowly; and it engages a bigger gear inside the switch that makes the switch turn even slower.

The motor turns the gear on the dial , which is connected to a set of four cams stacked on top of each other. Each of the cams engages one of the four contacts in the switch. Each of the four contacts has a bend in it, and each bend is located at a different height inside the box. Starting with the bottom left contact , the heights increase in a counterclockwise manner; the bottom left contact is the lowest, the top left contact is the highest.

A different cam engages each of these contacts. In the pictures below, you can see the four cam layers; each of these layers corresponds in height to one of the contacts. The cycle switch determines how long the elements stay on. In conjunction with the heat setting buttons , it also controls which heating elements are on at a given time.

If none of the heating elements are on, only cool air blows through the clothes; if one is on, the air is warm; and if both are on, the air is hot. If you press any of the top four buttons, they stay depressed. If you then press a different button, the first one pops up, and the new button stays pressed in. A really neat set of plates that work like the tumblers in a lock make this feature possible, and also control which heating elements are engaged.

Inside the switch are a set of four contacts. Depending on which button is pressed in, the plates open or close various combinations of the contacts. The following set of pictures illustrates how pressing the buttons causes the plates to line up in different ways, raising or lowering the bars that make the contacts. The dryer also has a couple of safety features that help to prevent overheating.

There are two temperature shut-off switches. When these switches reach certain preset temperatures, they break contact, which shuts the dryer off. The first switch is located near the lint screen. The picture above shows the front of the dryer , with the front panel partially removed. The first temperature sensor is on the right.