Wanted: pictures of HOH Maytag dryers

[pturo]

They did make a prior gas valve at 22,000 BTU in the 60's,but in the 70's it was down rated to 18,000. I replaced my old 18,000 BTU valve with a 60's 22,000, which I guess would be 22% more heat, if you do the math. Naturally, the cycling switches rule the internal drum heat exhaust, but the BTU higher imput would get the dryer hotter, faster, with wet clothes, buying less time than a lower BTU rated burner/valve system.

 

[neptunebob]

Maybe they reduced the burner because people complained a Halo of Heat was too hot - turning it into a Halo From Hell. BTW, are they really that hard to service and if so, why didn't Maytag change them? Or did they need something to keep the Maytag repairman less lonely?

 

[pturo]

They are actually not that easy to service,the entire cabinet needs to be taken off,but they are really good at what they do. They should have had a front panel take off to service.

 

[maytag85]

Old thread

I think the reason why Maytag throttled the heat output to 18,000 btus was the 22,000 btus probably did a number on the large outer felt seal right by the air mixer assembly which slowed down the drying speed since the high limit thermostat was kicking the burner off since the incoming air was bypassing the burner cone. While 18,000 btus is on the lower side to begin with, definitely gentler on certain types of clothes. Even more gentle if the cycling thermostat is replaced with a L120-10 low heat thermostat.

 

[combo52]

Halo of heat, Maytag, gas dryers

Used a lower 18,000 BTU burner as did some other poorly designed gas dryers.

I’m sure Maytag was being cautious because of the placement of the flame so close to and under the flammable seal and because of the general poor blower performance on halo of heat dryers. The belt tension was very light for the primary belt on these dryers so there is a good deal of Slipyj, especially with a heavy load on the primary belt at the motor, pulley and some of the blower pulley as well. The blower itself was not nearly as robust as the blower and Kenmore and whirlpool dryers either GE for that matter

Of all the popular dryers the halo if he gas dryer was certainly the slowest one at trying to load of clothing. It was the only gas dryer I ever saw when consumer reports test that took longer than the electric version ,

The electric halo of heat dryers also were lower wattage that almost any other dryer it only 4800 W you had whirlpool in Kenmore dryers at 5600 W for example.

Between the lower capacity and slower performance, you can see why Maytag dryers were not favorite for large families. Lots of laundry needed to be done on a weekly basis.

One of our neighbors that had nine children had a Maytag halo if he gas dryer that thing ran all the time, but she still hung a lot of laundry on the line

When we finally replaced it with a whirlpool gas dryer in the early 80s, she proclaimed that she never knew a dryer could be so fast and keep up with the washing machine.

 

[maytag85]

Since I’ve used both gas and electric HOH dryers, the electric is indeed faster. But one nice thing I like about the gas HOH dryers is they are actually quite gentle on clothes when everything is tuned up properly, reason why they got a bad wrap for being slow is the pilot was left on and qsd-dan mentioned (can’t remember the thread) that every gas HOH he had come through had a weak high limit thermostat which was caused by the standing pilot weakening the bimetallic metal inside the high limit thermostat which would shut off the burner sooner than necessary. Had that happen once when I left the pilot on the Maytag DG306 but once I got into the habit of turning the pilot off when not being used, never had issues with that again. I want to start using that dryer again since I converted it into a DG407, but that probably won’t be until I figure out why it doesn’t turn on when plugged in, probably will look into it sometime next week.

 

[combo52]

Halo of heat Maytag gas dryer’s

The safety thermostat on the burner cone is in no way affected by the pilot light burning when the dryer is not in use.

It makes no difference in the speed of the dryer if the pilot light was on for days weeks or years before you dry a load of clothing that’s just ridiculous.

It’s not a bad idea to turn the pilot off just to save the gas but it’s a lot of trouble to relight it each time you want to use the dryer and very few people ever did that.

John