Whirlpool Dryers: Design Flaw?

When we had our propane furnace & water heater venting upgraded the installer just left the pipes sticking straight out from the wall < no 45 down elbow > with no grill of any kind. When I questioned him he said "not needed" .. The next spring my neighbour said he saw birds coming & going from one of the pipes - swallows nest about 6 feet in ! < bank swallows I assumed ? >

I let them fledge and cleaned it out & put a plastic grill over. John T.

Reply to
hubops
Loading thread data ...

I think a flapper is good to keep out back flow of air but ours were slightly warped and birds got in. The grill cage cover prevents this.

Reply to
invalid unparseable

I just pulled the back off the dryer and cleaned a fairly small amount of lint from inside the blower housing and gave the blower fins a brush-off. The duct looked good from what I could see so that's a job for another day.. But in a close examination of the area of the blower housing that the lint filter fits into - I think I might have identified the trouble - the lint filter needs to be about 3/16 inch longer .. With the blower housing removed and the filter completely inserted into it - the opening is _just barely_ covered. With the blower housing installed there is the thickness of the sheet metal dryer top to add .. plus a bit more for screw heads .. Maybe an email & phone call to Maytag and a phone call to the appliance dealer tomorrow - before I try to devise a DIY lint filter extension .. John T.

Reply to
hubops

Just a little strip of self adhesive rubber weatherstrup on the edge of the lint filter. I think the engineers count on lint blocking the gap in the first few minutes of operation - - -

Reply to
Clare Snyder

I'd be a little worried about the durability of that fix - the curved filter slides in & out along a fairly snug curved channel in the sheet metal . I might first look into something to shim it at the top - so that the filter can slide in a wee bit further before the handle bottoms out on the top of the dryer. John T.

Reply to
hubops

Gotta get together at schmittsville one of these days

Reply to
Clare Snyder

Thin felt?

Reply to
Clare Snyder

I don't think they would leave a gap in a filter. Probably a missing gasket or rubber strip of some sort. 3/16 is a huge gap. Maybe there is a rubber strip that got blown into the vent.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Yep. We still haven't been IN to a restaurant since covid started - at the start we got take-out to try to support a few favourite places, then even that went-by-the-wayside .. sadly. John T.

Reply to
hubops

No sign of anything damaged or missing. There's no way to measure the actual gap - but it's easy to deduce that some gap exists at the end of the filter after seeing how it just-barely covers the hole when the housing is removed from the machine . Can't see any other paths for the lint to bypass the filter. Doing a few loads of laundry with a longer filter or a DIY temporary filter extension would test my theory. John T.

Reply to
hubops

Rather than extend the filter, I removed the handle to allow the filter to be fully inserted - as a test - 3 or 4 loads should tell me if this is the problem or not .. < I hope >

- then I'll look for a permanent fix.

formatting link
John T.

Reply to
hubops

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.