Dryer Fire Patterns?

[washerdude]

There's something that's been bugging me when it come's to dryer fire's for the past few year's. Every time I search up "Dryer Fire" on google, what's the first thing I see? A GE built dryer. I see that it has grew quite a bit now. I'm beginning to point finger's at GE as majority of the dryer fire picture's I see have a GE built in them. And this model is the ones with the heating element at the back of the drum. But lets go further, what I see the least of, is Whirlpools's 29 inch dryer with the top mounted lint screen. I hardly have seen those in the image's if not very few. I thought at first that this might be a coincidence, but it's re-occurring which make's my doubt's go further. I never really liked GE dryer design's with the heating element behind the drum. We had a Hotpoint made by GE when we moved in and it was a nightmare. Clothes took forever to dry and sometimes you had to run multiple cycles even though the vent was clear. What are your guy's thought's? GE is scratched off my list for dryer's.

 

[fan-of-fans]

Well, I've heard that the Whirlpool with top filter design tends to collect less lint inside than other designs, so maybe there's a connection. All of ours have been Whirlpool/Kenmore with the top filter, and no fires. My grandmother had a late 70s GE with the filter in the door opening, and no fires either. That's the only person I've known with a GE dryer.

 

[henene4]

With the GEs, by nature, if some lint touches the heating element, which might be hotter than usual due to a bad vent, the lint might ignite, and due to the element being so close by the laundry, the airstream can quite easily carry the short flame up into the drum, igniting the laundry. Further, being a back to front airflow dryer, it logicly has more ducting work, thus seams and seals, thus place lint can get into the housing. And as far as I see it, the air intake could quite easily pick up lint that might have fallen out of the cabinet.

With the WPs, you have only 3 short main air passages: In over the heater (which is situated "a corner away" from the laundry), through the laundry, and out through the lint filter (which is quite huge). There are only 2 real seams, and all components except for the motor are located on the back side in a pretty tight space, so not a huge area to build up lint in.

 

[gusherb]

What Henrik said.

Having worked on every major dryer design, the latest being an electric GE, I was apalled to see the heating element in the back of the drum with very little buffer between it and the clothes. A small piece of lint getting sucked up from the bottom of the cabinet (which a ton of lint builds up there) and onto the element is all it takes...

The older Maytag dryers collected a lot of lint in the bottom, as well as the SQ clone Amana we used to have. I used to vacuum that out once a year and it got pretty nasty in that time.

The top lint filter Whirlpools are the best as said before, because they virtually do not collect any lint in the cabinet at all. I've taken 15 yr old ones apart that had never been apart before and had almost nothing to vacuum out. Also the heating elements are further away from the clothes as also mentioned.

 

[iej]

Do any U.S. Dryers have the filter on the door?

The most common place for the filter on European dryers is on the door or under the door in a long double folding device.

The airflow is normally in through the back and out through the door and down a duct and out through the side or back of the machine.

Only exceptions I've ever seen are the very old Hoovers which had a filter on the back of the drum that actually rotated with the drum. They'd the Halo of Heat configuration with elements around the door.

 

[whirlcool]

Where the lint can gather in a WP top filter dryer is at the bottom of the shaft that the filter fits into. It can also accumulate where the air hose exits the dryer on it's way out of the house.

Even though the manuals for the dryers from the manufacturers tell the customers that the dryers need to be cleaned out periodically virtually nobody ever does it.
When you talk to people about dryer fires you'll usually get a response like "Gee, I didn't know they could do that!" even though it happens all the time. If you do a closer examination of the situation you'll usually find their ignorance is directly related to their pocketbook.

Three times in the past year I've worked on freinds dryers. All of them were clogged up with excessive lint. Two of these dryers had air vents that ran up in an inside wall to the attic, across the attic space to an eve where the air then exited. To clean the vent we used a lawn leaf blower on full blast. Within seconds all around the house it looked like it was snowing. And I mean a blizzard! The inside of the dryer was pretty clean except for the air filter holder, which was clogged with lint. One dryer, a Kenmore with filter in the door was so clogged with lint that the filter never had any airflow over it. The lint was rock hard with residue from excessive use of fabric softener. I had to use a hammer & Chisel to clean the duct that contained the filter out.

 

[iej]

Smooth walled short ducts make a big difference!

 

[askolover]

My GE

is 16 years old. About a month ago I replaced the front and rear bearings and belt. I had to take the drum out to get to the rear bearing support. I was surprised at how little lint was actually inside the dryer cabinet. Now mind you, my dryer is GAS, and the burner is on the right side bottom...but the rear of the dryer is the same minus the heating coils. I did find lint behind the heat diffuser plate on the back of the drum, but really not very much for 16 years. The inside vent passages get vacuumed regularly, but to do anything else requires opening the top and removing the front completely. I could see an electric one catching fire if it were overloaded.

I have never had an issue with performance....just dried a mixed load of colors that included a few pairs of denim shorts...one hour on LOW heat. I have dried sheets on high heat before in 20 minutes. I'll keep renewing my dryer until it's no longer renewable because it's pretty much all mechanical (reliable). My duct is brand new rigid and 13 feet long. Standing outside I can hear the airflow coming out.

My mother's first dryer was a 1966 WP...it caught fire! We never really cared for WP's design though...GE and newer Maytags at least had the heat come in the back and the clothes tumbled more THROUGH the heated air. When I'd dry my waterbed comforter in Mom's WP it would be dry on one side, I'd have to take it out and turn it around so it would dry the other side. In her next GE and current MT, and now my GE I don't have to do that. The only time I have a problem is if it balls up and stays damp in the middle (which is rare...king flannel sheets). My first dryer was also a WP ($50 used) that was the same way with comforters. But I will say it's much easier to replace the element on a WP dryer!

My grandmother had a early 60's GE dryer...she used that thing for 45 years without any problem whatsoever!

 

[johnb300m]

This is odd to hear. I've had mostly GE dryers in my apartments. 1 was electric. It dried great!
Thermostat sensor dryers. The electric does take a little longer than gas, but that's always the case it seems.
I rather like the GE design.
Surprised to hear they're fire prone.

I've been doing a lot of appliance research the past few months. I must say, my big take-away from all the reviews I've read......is that people are terribly negligent with their appliances and abuse the crap out of them.
I'd be willing to bet that many of those fires happened in filthy dryers with negligent owners.

 

[askolover]

I'll second that!

 

[retro-man]

So just out of curiosity, do gas dryers have less fires than electric ones?

Jon

 

[henene4]

My mind tells me probably. As the main heat source is the main danger of ignition, gas dryers should have the advantage of the heat source being designed flame "proof" due to it being a flame.
And thus, its pretty "far" away from the clothing, and any lint being sucked in is just burned together with the gas. And if aiflow is blocked, I think the dryer will recognize the failure that should cause within the flame system.

 

[mark_wpduet]

Well My Duet dryer

collects like crazy.....I once took the bottom panel off and I could not believe how much lint was all over the place....So I clean this every couple of years or so with a vacuum....This is not a top mounted lint screen like the regular WP dryers. We had a GE dryer once (actually it was hotpoint made by GE) but no fire..