1997 Whirlpool electric dryer project

[dustin92]

I happened to run across a working (but not properly) Whirlpool electric dryer a couple days ago... for free on a local Facebook freebie group. The seller said it worked but not very well, didn't seem to get very hot and took forever to dry. I drove the 15 or so miles in the rain (of course) tonight to collect it. I met one of the nicest people I've ever dealt with on a private sale and managed to get it out of the walk out basement and into my car (Toyota Prius) without causing any damage to the house, the dryer, or my car. Strapped the back hatch down and I drove home, where I unloaded it in the rain as well. Got it inside and got a good look at it, it's actually in excellent condition for being nearly 20 years old. The drum is even still white. Now on to the issue- (so far) the thing was totally clogged with lint, although I haven't plugged it in yet, I can imagine I'm looking at the biggest problem. Next issue, the cord is wired through the terminal block opening, and the cover is missing. Not a big issue for what I plan on doing with it, but the best is where I noticed the L of the 3 prong cord has been cut off with what looks like a hack saw. Again, I won't be using this cord, no issues there. I'd like to set it up for 120v operation (I do know it can be done, but I'd really appreciate instructions if anyone can help me out!) to be used in winter and have the warm moist air vented into the house (we did this every winter at our old house with a 240v dryer), which we currently can't do because we only have gas hookups and can't vent those into the house- certainly don't want to be breathing those fumes or having the house smell like gas-exhaust! So basically giving it a good cleaning and converting to 120v. Will work some more on cleaning it up tomorrow!

 

[combo52]

Great Dryer

Hi Dustin, you can tell by how clogged up this dryer was that the last owner had it connected to a very poor vent system, I hope they fixed this when they got a new dryer, LOL.

 

It is easy to connect this or almost any US 240 V electric dryer for 120 V operation, basically move the red wire at the terminal block to the center position and disconnect the neutral cabinet ground and attach a 120 V 12 ga is best but you can get away with a 14 ga grounded cord-set.

 

Worst thing is the timer will not run long enough to automatically dry clothing and on the auto-dry cycles the dryer will never get hot enough to shut off.

 

Depending on your home it might be ok to use a gas dryer without an outside vent. A gas dryer produces far less CO than a gas range that is often run without being vented and uses less that 1/2 as much gas. In some areas of the country it is not even against code to do this.

 

[dustin92]

Actually, it doesn't matter much what the venting was like, the lady had just sold the house and her daughter had given her a set (LG front loaders that looked pretty beat up) for her new house, so she was using those until she moved. Said the new dryer worked fine. As far as wiring for 120v, do I just disconnect the green ground wire from the cabinet and leave it at that? And move the red terminal to the center (white) terminal? Connect the 120v cord to the left (black) and center (white and red) only? Will the temperature settings still work or is it just one temperature (in other words, just leave it on any setting or should I use a specific temperature (and which... high, medium, or low?) I imagine I could just vent the gas dryers into the house, but they dry very fast, so a lot of heat and humidity into the house in a very short time, along with the smell. I have disconnected the vent on the downstairs dryer a couple times when it was cold and needed a quick warm up, but I'm not a huge fan of breathing gas fumes unnecessarily lol.