About three years ago my wife and I were really on a budget since it was for our first house. We bought our washer, dryer, dishwasher, and fridge all for about 50% off MSRP at a local Sears outlet. If you're in the Bay Area the Milpitas and San Leandro stores have crazy cheap deals. Most of what they have are scratch and dents, others are customer returns.
The dryer has run without problems for about three years, but lately it's been taking signifigantly longer to finish a cycle. These modern day dryers is based on temp/humidity readings instead of a simple countdown timer. A huge load of towels that used to take about 50 minutes to dry were taking about 2 hours or sometimes leaving clothes slightly damp.
I know that we're out of warranty so I looked online and got some hints on how to take the dryer apart. It's scary that the dryer is held together by two screws and two spring clips. The lit flips up and the front panel comes off by lifting up and out.
There was a disgusting amount of lint covering everything inside. So I pulled my airgun and shop vac from the garage and went to work vacuuming all the lint out of the nooks and crannies. I paid careful attention to the dozen or so sensors and switches that were wired to the heating element and blower fan. While I was in there I noticed these rectangular aluminum panels that were on both sides, the top, and front panels. I'm guessing that these are pathectic attempt and sound dampening, then I remembered I have some leftover Dynamat in my garage.
If you don't know what Dynamat is, it's a soundproofing product used mostly by car audio nuts. Chip Foose uses it in many of his hotrods, and I've heard of some people using it to shield heat from the "engine hump" in vans and boats. It's thin metal on one side, and sticky black rubber on the other side. It doesn't have an adhesive, but the black rubber side is sticky as heck.
I placed a huge piece to cover the right side of the machine, a couple scrap pieces to cover the majority of the top, a small piece to cover the left (and keep away from the heating element), and a medium piece for the front. The clearances were a little tight next to the drum so I was careful to use a paint stick to make sure I had good adhesion.
Holy moses! If you knock on the sides or top with your knuckles it sounds like you're knocking on a phone book instead of a huge piece of tin. Slamming the dryer door now sounds like a solid Lexus door.
Now I was on a rampage and did the same treatment to our washer. We have a top loader so it was only 10 screws to take off the back panel and affix dynamat to both sides and the back panel.
I'm going to check the dryer in a couple days to make sure the heat doesn't affect the dynamat, but I'm super impressed with the difference. Before we had to close the door in order to watch TV, now you can't tell it's on.
The dryer has run without problems for about three years, but lately it's been taking signifigantly longer to finish a cycle. These modern day dryers is based on temp/humidity readings instead of a simple countdown timer. A huge load of towels that used to take about 50 minutes to dry were taking about 2 hours or sometimes leaving clothes slightly damp.
I know that we're out of warranty so I looked online and got some hints on how to take the dryer apart. It's scary that the dryer is held together by two screws and two spring clips. The lit flips up and the front panel comes off by lifting up and out.
There was a disgusting amount of lint covering everything inside. So I pulled my airgun and shop vac from the garage and went to work vacuuming all the lint out of the nooks and crannies. I paid careful attention to the dozen or so sensors and switches that were wired to the heating element and blower fan. While I was in there I noticed these rectangular aluminum panels that were on both sides, the top, and front panels. I'm guessing that these are pathectic attempt and sound dampening, then I remembered I have some leftover Dynamat in my garage.
If you don't know what Dynamat is, it's a soundproofing product used mostly by car audio nuts. Chip Foose uses it in many of his hotrods, and I've heard of some people using it to shield heat from the "engine hump" in vans and boats. It's thin metal on one side, and sticky black rubber on the other side. It doesn't have an adhesive, but the black rubber side is sticky as heck.
I placed a huge piece to cover the right side of the machine, a couple scrap pieces to cover the majority of the top, a small piece to cover the left (and keep away from the heating element), and a medium piece for the front. The clearances were a little tight next to the drum so I was careful to use a paint stick to make sure I had good adhesion.
Holy moses! If you knock on the sides or top with your knuckles it sounds like you're knocking on a phone book instead of a huge piece of tin. Slamming the dryer door now sounds like a solid Lexus door.
Now I was on a rampage and did the same treatment to our washer. We have a top loader so it was only 10 screws to take off the back panel and affix dynamat to both sides and the back panel.
I'm going to check the dryer in a couple days to make sure the heat doesn't affect the dynamat, but I'm super impressed with the difference. Before we had to close the door in order to watch TV, now you can't tell it's on.
