Arg! Our Kenmore Dryer has stopped heating again because the high-temp cutoff switch opened. On 11/02 we had the same problem (I've included my FIXED post below).
Any ideas as to what could cause the high-temp cutoff to repeatedly blow? Not enough venting? Why isn't the low-temp switch preventing the blow out?
Thanks, Mike
======================================================================= From 11/02/2005: I appreciate the posts and suggestions. After reading some of the online repair websites, I checked the thermostats on the heating element can. The high temp cut off was an open circuit (#3977394). I bought a replacement kit at Fox Appliance in Doraville, GA for $25 and installed it yesterday. Dryer appears to be working again.
The guy at Fox said to replace both the open-circuited part and the lower-temp thermostat (both pieces were in the $25 kit). He said that the low-temp part should have cut in before the high-temp part. I assume that one of two things happened:
1) The low-temp part was defective and the dryer overheated until it triggered the high-temp cut off thermostat.2) The high-temp cut off thermostat was defective and triggered at a much lower temperature than it should have.
Anyone have any thoughts on this? #1 concerns me as it would mean that a true overheat occured and I need to know why. #2 is a simple manufacturing defect.