The electric dryer. Again. Stumped...

[dbhost]

I had a similar issue once with my old whirlpool dryer and it acutally was the heating element. It tested out for the continuity if I remember correctly but when I looked into the box itself one or two of the little insulator towers had fallen over so it was actually shorted out and would not work. I used some long needle nose pliers and stood them up and it started working fine after that.

Will check that. Thanks.

[mineengineer]

Is power getting to the element?

Maybe the timer or some control switch/thermostat isnt sending power to the element. If you could carefully and safely check voltage on the heating element while it is supposed to be running/heating you might track down the problem but be carefull and dont get hit by moving parts or hot or energized surfaces. Is it a four or three wire setup? bonded or unbonded ground/ neutral? The heating element is probably 220V but the timer motor is probably 110V and if you lost neutral/ground you might only have 220 available inside the appliance.

[dbhost]

Maybe the timer or some control switch/thermostat isnt sending power to the element. If you could carefully and safely check voltage on the heating element while it is supposed to be running/heating you might track down the problem but be carefull and dont get hit by moving parts or hot or energized surfaces. Is it a four or three wire setup? bonded or unbonded ground/ neutral? The heating element is probably 220V but the timer motor is probably 110V and if you lost neutral/ground you might only have 220 available inside the appliance.

The socket is a 3 prong socket.

I am concerned that the timer is the problem. I have heard they are rather spendy and might as well get a new dryer...

[sparkeyjames]

I had a problem along these lines. The dryer would spin but did not heat up.
I traced the problem back to the circuit breaker it wasn't getting juice to all legs.
Removed it and reinserted the breaker and found that due to space limits it was
not making sufficient contact with the rails. Shuffled things around in the breaker panel
and bingo we have heat.

[Daryl]

Dryers have a setting for tumbling with no heat, you may wish to look around that area of the timer, or it could be a separate switch. Schematics are usually tucked inside the cabinet someplace if not on the back.

[Skaning]

Going to suggest one more pass at the element. This time disassemble it and take a hard look at the wire coil. Most new dryers there is a single coil with 220 across it. I recently had one that failed so the failed joint welded themselves to ground. Guess what, multimeter showed continuity. Some older Kenmores actually had two 110 elements, each on a separate leg but newer ones do not. In any case, did not heat worth a darn until we replaced element.