Dryer Trips Breaker...Except When it Doesn't

Alright, I'm at a loss. When I vent my dryer to the outside it takes 2 - 3 cycles to dry a load of clothes. I assume the duct is clogged or partially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

So I bought one of those little plastic interior vent boxes that you put some water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. When I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 minutes of drying. I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the same results.

So I moved the little plastic vent box across the hall from the dryer and turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in and suck the warm air from the dryer out. It still trips the breaker.

The breaker gets warm but if there was a problem why wouldn't it also trip when the dryer is vented to the outside?

Reply to
triple7sss
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- 3 cycles to dry a load of clothes. =A0I assume the duct is clogged or pa= rtially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

some water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. =A0When = I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 = minutes of drying. =A0I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the = dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the= same results.

turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in= and suck the warm air from the dryer out. =A0It still trips the breaker.

p when the dryer is vented to the outside?

NO HVAC guy needed to clean exhaust line, crudely connect a shop vacs EXHAUST to the interior dryer connection.......

turn on shop vac it will blow all the lint out of the dryer vent, have somone watch the exhaust spot they will likely see a big cloud of lint come out. do this easy maintence every 6 months or a year, your utility bill will be less........

your dryer likely is filled with lint, i would use the shop vac on vac and try to clean the dryer.....

the breaker may be just going bad, they are designed to trip sooner at end of life

Reply to
bob haller

cycles to dry a load of clothes. I assume the duct is clogged or partially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. When I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 minutes of drying. I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the same results.

turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in and suck the warm air from the dryer out. It still trips the breaker.

the dryer is vented to the outside?

I bet the heating element is partially shorted. When the venting is partially blocked the thermal opens before the breaker cooks off.

Reply to
gfretwell

Alright, I'm at a loss. When I vent my dryer to the outside it takes 2 - 3 cycles to dry a load of clothes. I assume the duct is clogged or partially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

So I bought one of those little plastic interior vent boxes that you put some water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. When I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 minutes of drying. I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the same results.

So I moved the little plastic vent box across the hall from the dryer and turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in and suck the warm air from the dryer out. It still trips the breaker.

The breaker gets warm but if there was a problem why wouldn't it also trip when the dryer is vented to the outside?

Reply to
WW

cycles to dry a load of clothes. I assume the duct is clogged or partially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. When I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 minutes of drying. I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the same results.

turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in and suck the warm air from the dryer out. It still trips the breaker.

when the dryer is vented to the outside?

Or mabee the breaker is just weak enough that it would trip anyway if the thermal didn't trip out first. I'd replace the breaker before doing anything else - and THEN clean everything out.

Reply to
clare

cycles to dry a load of clothes. I assume the duct is clogged or partially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. When I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 minutes of drying. I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the same results.

turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in and suck the warm air from the dryer out. It still trips the breaker.

the dryer is vented to the outside?

Not sure why the breaker is tripping so I'm not going to speculate. You don't want an HVAC guy to do the dryer vent. He is going to charge you far more than a handyman to do the job. I've even seen a local guy advertise dryer vent cleaning so you may want to check the classified ads in the local shoppers paper for that.

You will probably save $100 that way.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

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triple7sss wrote: Alright, thanks for that and I'll try and blow it out with the shop vac before I go the HVAC route.

I took the cover off of the breaker panel a bit ago and noticed the black wire go> Alright, I'm at a loss. When I vent my dryer to the outside it takes 2 > - 3

Reply to
triple7sss

- 3 cycles to dry a load of clothes. =A0I assume the duct is clogged or pa= rtially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

some water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. =A0When = I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 = minutes of drying. =A0I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the = dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the= same results.

turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in= and suck the warm air from the dryer out. =A0It still trips the breaker.

p when the dryer is vented to the outside?

Use the exhaust from a shop vac or from a leaf blower to blow out the duct. Try running the dryer with no hose on the exhaust, just the built-in lint filter and see if it still blows. If it does, then the exhaust system has nothing to do with the breaker blowing, and the problem is too much current being drawn by the dryer, or the breaker is going bad. You can get almost anyhandy person to move the dryer to a different breaker to see if the failure follows the dryer or not. If the substitute breaker also trips, the dryer is 99% at fault. If the new breaker does not fail, replace the original breaker.

Reply to
hrhofmann

responding to

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triple7sss wrote: That makes sense. That's the only way I can come up with that it would NOT trip the breaker when vented outside to the clogged duct which would cut off the thermal breaker in the dryer but would still let it run and not trip the electrical breaker.

Thanks!

gfretwell wrote:

Reply to
triple7sss

cycles to dry a load of clothes. I assume the duct is clogged or partially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. When I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 minutes of drying. I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the same results.

turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in and suck the warm air from the dryer out. It still trips the breaker.

when the dryer is vented to the outside?

I would clean out the dryer first and take a look at the element while you have the front off. Why buy a breaker before you do a cleaning you should do anyway?

I own a clamp on ammeter so I would know the draw before I even took the cover off.

Reply to
gfretwell

Triple7sss:

I can't help thinking that the reason why the dryer is working better but tripping the breaker when the duct is going into that plastic vent box is because the duct length involved is shorter and straighter, but the humidity in the air is going up.

The dryer duct might not necessarily be clogged. It may be that the dryer duct is simply imposing too much resistance to air flow.

777sss, in the picture below, can you tell us which kind of flexible duct you have connected to your dryer and about how long it is before it gets to the vent cap on the exterior of your house?

[image:

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(If it's #1, it shouldn't even be used on a dryer because it's a fire hazard, and ducts like these have so much resistance to air flow that they'll only work semi-reasonably well if the path from the dryer to the vent cap is short and straight.)

It could be that the problem with the dryer is entirely due to the length and type of duct it's being expected to blow air through, and the tripping of the breaker is because venting the dryer through that little plastic box is just putting all the moisture from the clothes into the air, and that increased humidity makes the air more conductive to electricity.

I recall getting electrical shocks from the static electricity that built up on my body when I was a kid and I rubbed my shoes on the carpet in the house I grew up in. But, that only happened in the winter, and I subsequently learned the reason was because in winter the outdoor air comes into our houses and warms up, thereby sending it's relative humidity way down. In the summer, the indoor relative humidity is higher, and it's all the water molecules in the air that dissipate the static electricty on your body into the surrounding air. Dryer air is a better electrical insulator, and so you have to touch something grounded to remove the static electricity that builds up, and doing that give you a small shock.

I'm thinking that with enough humidity in the air and a great big 240 volt heating element in a dryer, you could have enough conductivity through the air to the metal cabinet of the dryer to trip the breaker. I know it sounds kinda far fetched, but that's what I keep coming up with.

Reply to
nestork

that #1 plastic fire hazard vent.

I replaced it on a friends dryer because of the safety hazard...... she wasnt happy claimed it couldnt burn. so i took a piece out in the yard and tried lighting it with a charcoal lighting torch, it refused to burn.

so then i tried lighting it with my propane torch, it still refused to burn, it put itself out as soon as i removed the torches flame...

the plastic line is highly convenient and not always the hazard presented.....

if you doubt this try the experiment yourself....

Reply to
bob haller

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I have number 4. I thought the damp air/heat might be the problem as well but like I say I put the little vent box right under my whole house fan and pulled the vented dryer air out of the house as quickly as it came out of the dryer and it still trips.

Reply to
triple7sss

That is an excellent idea and why didn't I think of moving it to another breaker to test?!?!?! Thanks for that.

I did reverse my shop vac and first got a big face full of lint blowback which tells me that the duct was pretty well clogged. I vacuumed for a bit then reversed again and it would blow through.

I crawled under the deck and by shining a flashlight up the duct I can see great balls of lint inside. As I stand here today - that duct runs 16' to the outside of the house. My shop vac doesn't have enough ooomph to blow the lint clods out. Maybe it's time to try the leaf blower.

Reply to
triple7sss

Thanks for the ideas and a couple things to update.

I reversed my shop vac and was rewarded with a face full of lint blowback. Indicates that the duct was pretty well clogged. Vacuumed down in there as far as I could get and then reversed and used the exhaust to blow and air goes through now.

Crawled under the deck and with a flashlight shone up the duct I can see giant balls of lint - not completely blocking anymore - and my shop vac doesn't have enough juice to blow them out or vac them back up. Sealed up around the shop vac hose going into the duct to generate more pressure but it is 16' from the dryer to the outside.

I also ran the dryer again with it vented inside and noticed that the BLACK wire going to the breaker gets hot. Not just warm but actually hot and is hot about 4 - 6 inches down the wire back from the breaker.

I don't know if this indicates a problem with the breaker or the dryer. The cord from the dryer to the wall is cool to the touch.

Reply to
triple7sss

when the dryer is vented to the outside?

Maybe it's a coincidence and now it will trip even when vented to the outsie.

Don't you have to separate the wires from each other, in the cable, and put the clamp-on around just one of them?

Reply to
micky

*You need to push a brush through the duct to clean it properly and then blow it out. I put my brush in a drill and have it spinning while the dryer is blowing out cool air. I push the rotating brush in a few feet at a time and then pull it out and lint comes blowing out. Lowes sells a dryer duct cleaning kit and there are others available online. The hot wire could just be as a result of a loose connection on the circuit breaker. Tighten the connections on the breaker. If it still gets hot, replace the circuit breaker. There is also a slim possibility that the wire size is too small. You should also check with an ammeter how many amps the dryer is actually pulling.
Reply to
John Grabowski

when the dryer is vented to the outside?

That is how it works. Fortunately dryer cords are usually zip lead or you check it in the panel. Be aware there are L/N loads in a dryer so you have to check both ungrounded conductors.

Reply to
gfretwell

cycles to dry a load of clothes. I assume the duct is clogged or partially clogged and will get HVAC guy to come out and take a look.

some water in and run the flexible duct from the dryer over to it. When I hook that up, clothes dry quickly but it blows the breaker after about 5 minutes of drying. I thought maybe venting warm air was overheating the dryer so I extended the flex tube out to the front of the dryer and got the same results.

turned on the whole house fan that sits directly above to pull cool air in and suck the warm air from the dryer out. It still trips the breaker.

when the dryer is vented to the outside?

The reason I would do it in the order specified is it did NOT trip with the possibly plugged or restricted line - and does when wide open. The (possibly) restricted duct is NOT the cause of the breaker tripping. Fix the tripping breaker first. If the breaker STILL trips, you have a drier problem.

The other passibility to troubleshoot is to get an Amprobe type tester to measure the drier current. If it is tripping at below 80% of the breaker rating it IS a bad breaker.

Reply to
clare

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Alright, thanks for that and I'll try and blow it out with the shop vac before

I go the HVAC route.

going into the breaker gets hot. Not just warm but downright hot. the cord off the dryer going into the outlet isn't warm at all. I don't know if that points to the breaker or the partially shorted heating element.

You have either a bad connection at the breaker or a bad breaker. I would replace the breaker FOR SURE and be sure the connection is good and clean and tight.

Reply to
clare

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