Maytag Drying Center
If you can get it for a good price, these are interesting machines. I was given a brand new gas one about 20 years ago where both the upper doors were damaged and I took doors off of discarded one, it’s now installed in my laundry room and it certainly works as intended
I had a roommate at the time who was very fussy about his clothing and I thought it would be a neat machine for him. I have only once ever use the upper drying cabinet, however, I do use the lower gas dryer a couple times a month it works fine. It’s slower than all the whirlpool dryers because it’s only 18,000 BTUs , but it does work. It’s a Norge dryer basically.
The two different drying areas Operate independently except on the all electric machine when you operate the upper drying cabinets 1800 W drying system it cuts the heating element down on the lower dryer by 1800 W so the lower dryer loses a lot of speed if you’re using both at once. On the gas model it has to be plugged in to a 20 amp outlet and you can run both the upper unit and the lower unit at full capacity.
The upper Unit does not recycle the heat from the lower dryer. They work completely independently and the upper unit essentially vents into the room the little bit of heat that it puts off.
Overall, I think this is a decent performing unit, as Dan said it was not exceptionally well built, but for an appliance collector, who is going to use it occasionally I think you’d get a lot of use out of it. I would only get it if the idea of drying things flat or hanging up Appeals to you otherwise there’s no reason to get it. It is one of The many interesting and innovative products that Maytag came out with near the end and it’s also one of the reasons the company over extended their reach into the Appliance business and got sold.
For this new unused one I would offer two or $300, I stashed more than enough used parts for the one I have so I’m not worried about keeping it working, I suppose if this was gonna be your only dryer you should get some extra parts for it if it was gonna get a lot of use.
John
