My dryer is taking a long time to dry clothes-any suggestions before I call a repair person?

Question

My dryer is taking a long time to dry clothes-any suggestions before I call a repair person?

Answer 1

If the exhaust isn't blocked with lint or kinked to restrict the airflow there's a couple other things to check.  First are the clothes being spun good enough in the washer to remove a good bit of the water.  If not, you might want to try running them through a second spin cycle to get them drier before moving them to the dryer.  There's usually a less/more setting on more modern dryers, if you have this, try setting a little more to the less dry side.  Once you run the dryer for about 5 minutes on high heat setting, open the door to see if it's really getting good hot air inside, if not it could be the heating coils.

Answer 2

Cleaned out the lint trap lately?  If so, it's probably the heating element - it'll have to be replaced

Answer 3

I'm assuming that you've done the obvious - checking to make sure it's not on the delicate cycle when drying towels, you are not overloading with heavy items like towels or jeans, and the lint trap is cleaned. After that, I would have to call someone out.

Answer 4

I had a dryer that did that once.  I checked to make sure nothing was clogging it.  Nothing was.  We even tipped it to look underneath, there can be alot there too.  None.  Anyways, we removed the vent hose, it dried normally.  Put it back on, and it took a  long time again.  I wasn't kinked or anything, so I don't know.  Nothing was really wrong.  So, we wound up leaving it off.  It kinda sucked because it would get all steamy and c**p.  Luckily, it was on a back porch and I could open the door to let the steam out.  But yeah, if we had the hose connected, it took a  long time, if we unconnected it...it dried in normal time.  Weird.

Answer 5

if it is getting warm at all then its more than likely clogged somewhere if it has no heat then its prolly your heating elliment there not to high around 30 to 50 dollars on average and it dont take but about 20 min to fix so if you do call someone dont get screwed

Answer 6

Clean the Exhaust tube on the back of it, it may have a build-up of lint in the exhaust which can cause them to be inefficient.

Answer 7

Make sure you keep lint filter clean as this can stop your dryer from drying properly and cause it not to dry as well

Add one to two dry Towels to dryer load to help your laundry dry faster this will also save you energy and drying time

Good Luck !

Answer 8

After checking the lint filter is clear, that the dryer isn't overfilled and that the dryer has sufficent air circulation around it...

You could either try some simple DIY

Here is a helpful link on DIY for dryer maintenance...

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/repaird...

Or call out a dryer repairer...

In our case the element had gone and it cost $25 AU to repair.

Good luck,

mum2MH