So the dryer stopped drying a few days ago. The dryer is relatively new; I think we got it about 18 months ago to replace a dryer a friend gave me. That dryer was a Whirlpool that looked like it probably could remember Ronald Reagan, and maybe even Jimmy Carter. Perhaps it was fixable, but I’d gotten somebody else’s money’s worth out of it, and then some.
So it seemed a little odd for this new dryer (a rebadged Whirlpool from a local scratch-and-dent dealer) to develop the same old-age disease this quickly.
The problem turned out to be my dryer vent. I’d come downstairs a few months ago and caught what looked like an open window out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t an open window; it was my dryer vent. I bought a cage to put over it to keep the basement from becoming a wild bird sanctuary.
A quick Web search suggested I check the dryer vent. So I looked outside, and indeed, I had a clog. I didn’t even have to go outside to see it. Dryers rely on airflow to get the job done, and that lint bunny looked nearly airtight.
So I took off the cage, cleaned out the vent with an appliance cleaning brush, and now the dryer works again.
