Appliance woes

Since it's summer, I usually hang my clothes to dry outside. Obviously this depends on the weather, so I wait for sunny days to wash, if I can. This saves me a super amount on electricity, but if it's more than a couple of days, I have to wash it and put it in the dryer. We've had three weeks of rain, and my poor dryer is taking 2 hours to dry 1 load, but it never used to be like that. It's a Whirlpool, and it's about 11 years old, and it's definitely been well used. I don't know what could be the problem.

Next up is the dishwasher, the past two mornings (I run it at night), there is about 2 inches of water left in the bottom. The dishes are perfectly clean. It is only about 3 years old, a stainless steel Whirlpool Gold.

Anyone else have these problems with their appliances? I have never had ANY, so all of this is new to me. I don't know what's wrong with my dryer, or my dishwasher. Can I try a bottle of Drano or something in the dishwasher first, so I can see if it's just clogged before I call a repair guy? The dishes are clean, so I don't know what's going on. Help! LOL

When my dryer stared doing that...It was the heating element, a pretty quick inexpensive fix.
We don't have a dishwasher so I can't help you with that.
Sorry they are all going down at the same time Jamie!

Hmmm...your dryer just might be on it's last legs if it's 11 years old...I usually do half a load of wet clothes at a time and it seems to dry more quickly for me that way.

Not sure about your dishwasher since it's only 3 years old.

I will say that it seems like when one thing goes out, they all do...when DH was deployed to Afghanistan 3 years ago, our AC and Hot water heater went out at the SAME time...about a month later my dishwasher and garbage disposal both went out and THEN a tree branch fell through our roof and punched a hole in it. ALL while he was gone...oh and someone hacked my paypal account and stole 1800 dollars from my bank acct. When it rains it pours lol

You might need to try check the vent for you dryer... maybe there's a bunch of lint in it so it's not venting the condensation well?

Also, with the dishwasher... sounds like the drain is either clogged or there's a kink in the hose. Try pulling the drain out of the bottom of the dishwasher to see if there's anything in there. If not, try short cyceling the dishwasher and pay attention to how quickly it drains to your garbage disposal. If it seems like it's taking too long, there's prolly a kink or something. NO Draino! LOL

Before the Army DH was a plumber.

Thank you guys! I thought it might be a heating element in the dryer, my dad had that before, so hopefully that's all it is!

As for the dishwasher, I'll ixnay the Drano LOL. I'll poke around in there and see what's inside. I bought this particular one because it has a disposal in the bottom, so if I forget some food on the plates it takes care of it for me.

Nikki, that sounds HORRID! OMG! What a horrible time that must have been!

Our heating element went at one point because the vent to outside was too plugged up -- so make sure yours is being cleaned once in a while (we have to get a chimney sweep since it's up on the roof).

Jamie, our dishwasher is doing the same thing. I have no idea why and it's making me crazy. Good luck!!!

I'm of NO help...
Just wanted to throw the idea of a suicide pact out there.





Good luck with the woes. No fun at all.

jsikardi said:

I'm of NO help...
Just wanted to throw the idea of a suicide pact out there.





Good luck with the woes. No fun at all.

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LMAO!

I have no advice.. as I own neither but GL figuring it out!

ZaCola3 said:

When my dryer stared doing that...It was the heating element

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That was my first thought. It's pretty common and one of the easiest and cheapest things to fix.

I am one of the few people in existence who doesn't have a dishwasher, so that one I have no idea.

Yep, I've had both problems before.

With the dryer, what I've found helps a lot is to go in and respin the clothes in the washer... this makes them much dryer and then my dryer could handle just one 1 hr cycle.

The dishwasher thing... When it happened to me, ours was very old (like 12-15 yrs) and it just wasn't worth fixing, so we bought a new one.