Darkness in the Clothes Dryer Drum

[Wade Garrett]

My wife told me the light was out in the clothes dryer drum so I removed the screw holding the awkward to get to clear cover to the light compartment, removed the 10 watt bulb and headed to the HD. But all they had were 6 watt bulb-s- which I knew she would be telling me wasn't bright enough.

I hit another HD and then a Lowes-- where I confirmed the existence of The Great Zero Inventory 10 Watt Dryer Drum Bulb Shortage.

I came home empty-handed and was about to tell her to just use the dryer as it was until I could find a bulb. But then I noticed the first actually useful product warning label I've ever seen: "Do Not Operate Dryer Without Bulb and Cover."

No doubt to keep humidity leading to a short or corrosion out of the bulb socket.

So I screwed the bulb back in and hey, the light comes on! I'm thinking eight years of drying clothes subjected the bulb to enough vibration to back it out.

Lesson learned? Before you remove/replace an appliance bulb that ain't coming on, make sure it's tight!

[Dean Hoffman]

Do the same if the bulb is in a dusty and/or wet environment. Old buildings where one almost never goes, for example.

[invalid unparseable]

We have a light over a garage door that about once a year needs re-tightened. Apparently gets enough vibration from the door to loosen the bulb.

[Jim Joyce]

Ideally, you'd look for comparable lumens, not comparable wattage, but I see that you fixed it another way for the time being.

[Wade Garrett]

How could I determine the very low output from the existing 8 year old bulb-- and the new ones I found for sale online only listed wattage (and occasionally color temp), not lumens.

[hubops]

... providing you can understand him - - with that mouthful of apple and the speech issues from all the knife mishaps. :-) John T.

[Scott Lurndal]

I'm not sure that I follow "wade"'s reasoning. What's so special about eating an apple with a knife? It is pretty clear that cognitive ability declines with age anyway.

"We develop many thinking abilities that appear to peak around age 30 and, on average, very subtly decline with age. These age-related declines most commonly include overall slowness in thinking and difficulties sustaining attention, multitasking, holding information in mind and word-finding."

[Dean Hoffman]

The old is probably about experience. Eating with the knife might be about patience and taking time to observe life. Sitting on a porch and watching life go by.

[Wade Garrett]

Interesting quote-- though you seem to have forgotten to mention said it ;-)

Speed-related functioning certainly does begin to fall off but language development, verbal and mathematical reasoning, judgement, analysis, abstraction, fund of general information, and a host of other executive functioning and experience-related things continue to increase well into the later years of life.

"Been there, done that, got the T-shirt" counts for a lot...

[Wade Garrett]

Especially if he's wearing faded bib overalls.

[hubops]

I googled it to try to find the source - to no avail. ... unless it's a Wade Garrett original ? John T.

[Scott Lurndal]

I suspect WG was referring to the paragraph I quoted sans attribution.

It can be found here:

[Jim Joyce]

Youtube presents me with what they think I want to see and the other day they showed me a video of an American woman asking this question:

"Of all the languages in the world, why did England choose to speak our language and not the language of one of their closer neighbors?"

[Jim Joyce]

It's usually printed right on the bulb, although in your case that may not be true, or it has faded, etc. The equipment manual may also have something to say about it. Appliance repair sites could be another source of info.

With the nearly industry-wide changeover to LED, wattage is no longer used as a measure of brightness, especially if the comparison is to an older incandescent type of bulb.

"Lumens measure the total amount of light emitted by the bulb while watts measure the amount of power consumed by the bulb. Watts do not tell you how bright the bulb is, lumens do."

[Marilyn Manson]

I recently bought a new dryer. It has a light inside.

Somehow, I've survived ~6 decades of drying clothes without a bulb and when I used this one, nothing made me say "Wow! That's better!" In fact, what I said was "Why?" I can't recall a single time I needed a work light or flashlight while drying my clothes.

I turned the light on and off and said "OK, so there's is a little more light, but do I need it? Nope."

What's the point of a light in a dryer? There's no light in the matching washer and items are more opt to get stuck to the top in a washer than a dryer. Do people dry their clothes in dark?

[hubops]

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The manufacturers look for any little "plus" to make the "plus" model seem better. ... to the younger folks - those who can't imagine a washer/dryer actually lasting 25 - 30 years .. John T.

[micky]

Democracy dies in darkness.

By golly, you're right. I think there shoudl be.

With your permission, I'm going to sell the idea of a washing machine light to whoever will pay the most. Whirlpool is my favorite, but I have to be practical.

[Wade Garrett]

Way more effort than I'd put in just to replace an effin' light bulb ;-)

[Wade Garrett]

Ah yes, yet another proud graduate of government schools.

[Peter]

Yeah, but so does "been there, done that, can't remember".