1975 Kenmore Dryer

[repairguy]

I was sought after through a customer to save the “Green Machine.” I’m a sucker for that four letter F word so I saved the Green Machine. Yes FREE is the word. Built the 30th week of 1975 this dryer has spent nearly 50 years in a southeast Texas garage and it is still in operating condition.

 

[DADoES]

 
Yay!

Thermostatic auto-dry apparently didn't work so well in that uncontrolled garage environment, being that the timer is at end of the Timed cycle.  It's discouraging how many people I know who refuse to use auto-dry.  My nephew and wife run everything for 1 hr on high heat.  One set of baby clothes ... 1 hr high heat.

 

[gelaundry4ever]

blower sounds

What does the blower sound like? How forceful is the airflow?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Hey People who live in a desert environment: Have you every heard of drying clothes on the air fluff or No Heat setting when it is really hot and dry and the dryer is in someplace like a garage or a sheltered porch? Thank you.

 

[goatfarmer]

That's just like my white one! But different.....

 

[DADoES]

 
Tom, thanks for the suggestion, something to try with a spare in the garage or if the opportunity arises at my parents' home.  The nephew and wife's dryer is in the climate-controlled envelope of their house.  She sets the A/C at arctic temps (as do her parents), and dislikes the "hot air blowing" in winter.  My sister once told of visiting for several days and playing a game of turning the 'stat up due to the chill and it repeatedly being turned back down (via the Nest phone app).

 

[bradfordwhite]

yeah, you don't want to run a dryer INSIDE an air conditioned house as it will suck all the cool air out. So much waste.

They need to make clothes dryers with a sealed cabinet and a 5 or 6" fresh air intake duct so one can connect to outside air and not waste indoor air for drying clothes.

 

[tomturbomatic]

That climate controlled envelope is why I use gas dryers outside when the air conditioning is on.

 

[maytag85]

Using outdoor air for clothes drying sounds like a good idea but you’ll pull in dust, dirt, and pollen inside the dryer which won’t help if you have allergies not to mention you’ll get dust on dirt on clothes you just washed. There’s a reason why dryers are designed the way dryers are.

 

[bradfordwhite]

Technically one is pulling in "dusty air" from the outside anyway. When one runs a dryer inside a building there has to be air leaking in in various places: through windows, doors, etc. And if there is insufficient air inflow because the house is particularly well sealed than the dryer won't work correctly. It will be starved of air.

A inflow air filter can be installed to protect the air. In fact the way a typical dryer is now is really taking chances with air quality. If it's in a musty damp basement then that's the air one's drying their clothes with. If there is dust, smoke, cigarette smoke, air borne cooking grease or other cooking odors in the house; that's the air ones drying their clothes with.
A pre-filter would really help to control that. It's said that outdoor air quality if often better than indoor air most likely due to natural air cleaners with plants and dilution.

 

[maytag85]

One thing I might try to do is put a furnace filter on the air inlet on the rear panel of the Maytag DE306 I am bringing back to life since a lot of the older Maytag Halo Of Heat dryers had a furnace filter so it would filter the incoming air before it reached the cabinet.

Here’s a photo from the archives of a Maytag Halo Of Heat dryer with a furnace filter on the rear panel.

 

[bradfordwhite]

That's interesting. Never seen that before. It's a good thought. But how tightly sealed is the cabinet?
If there isn't weather stripping at all the seams it will suck air from there.

 

[repairguy]

I have no problem line drying clothes especially here lately since it’s been 100 degrees every day. This year the dryer is used for one load every week and a half.

 

[maytag85]

The cabinet isn’t 100% sealed but will filter a majority of air entering the cabinet in the air inlet on the rear panel. Many of these filters were probably never replaced or cleaned and the dryer would start having issues not drying since it literally is being starved of air with a dirty air filter and the high limit thermostats on those Maytag Halo Of Heat dryers are quite sensitive since it will kick the element off once it reaches to 170F, even something as simple as opening a door on a Maytag Halo Of Heat dryer will cause the high limit thermostat to trip since it’s that sensitive.

 

[DADoES]

 
I dried today's washload of flat & fitted sheet set, six pillowcases, and several shirts (spun at AquaSmart 1,010 RPM) on Air/Fluff in a spare dryer (23yo GE/F&P frontloader) in the garage. Ambient temp is down today. Garage was 86°F at start, 90°F at end.  Relative humidity is mid 70%.  160 mins (80 min timer maximum x 2), result is dry to the touch, faintly dewy inhaling on a wad of sheet.  Load would have taken 15 to 20 mins + cool down in the topload AeroSmart.

 

[bradfordwhite]

#10 Come to think of it....

I did have a few HOH MT dryers back in the day, now that I think about it. Though they never had the filter material on the back I do remember seeing the sets of wires that were there to hold the filter in place.

It's encouraging that they did consider the importance of filtering the incoming air. I suppose as time went on and manufacturers stream-lined, certain features got dropped and this was one of those items.

 

[qsd-dan]

The filter media on HOH's were gone by 1966. Actually, it was gone a few years before, sometime around 1962-1963.

 

[bradfordwhite]

I did some wash yesterday afternoon. With our sunny 100+ degree heat, low humidity, and gentle breeze things dried quick.
Put everything on my drying rack and set it outside on the patio. Hung shirts on a hanger and then outside. Even though the bed sheets were folded a few times so they'd fit on the rack they were dry in half an hour.