ant tumble drier experts on line please?

[mckenzie]

my drier is going round fine and making all the right noises but its taking ages and ages to dry the clothes and it doesn't seem to actually be getting hot.
I've checked the manual under the 'what to do if' section and it doesn't mention this. I've cleaned the filters and emptied the water drawer but it's not making any difference. Any ideas please? It is about 9 years old. Could it just be knackered?

Marking my place in the hope you get some advice, as ours has just started to do the same (very similar age too)

While drying, it may seem damp and cool, as evaporating the water absorbs the heat, but just before the end of the drying cycle, it should feel hot and dry. I am assuming you have not accidentally set it to "low heat".

If it doesn't, it has a fault, possibly the heating element; possibly it has an overheat sensor that has tripped (an anti-fire precaution); possibly it has a faulty thermostat.

Of these, I would guess the tripped overheat would be cheapest and easiest to fix.

If you would have to pay £50 to have it looked at, you might prefer to buy a new one, depending on brand and quality.

This happened with my tumble drier and I fixed it myself.

Mine is an Indesit, I can tell you what I did if you think it might help?

Yes please LittleBarnOwl!

Sorry, was DS's first day at school so got a bit caught up!

Ok so if you unscrew the panel at the back and take a look at the heating element, at the top of the panel there should be 2 round discs.

These metal discs should be rounded so if they are flat or concave then you can reset them. If they have a hole in the back then push a straightened paper clip or something in the hole to pop it back.

If it doesn't have a hole then detach it, you might need to unscrew bits or pull quite hard if I remember rightly. Then throw the disc thing on the floor quite hard a few times till it pops out.

Put it all back together and try out.

I got this method from a tumble drier engineer on eBay of all places and it worked for me. Apparently it was because I had stopped the dryer a few times before it went through the cooling cycle at the end and it had tripped, now I always put it to the cool bit before I stop it and haven't had the problem again.

HTH

I'm going to try that too as I'm guilty of stopping it early if i want to get it folded before going out or to bed. Thanks LBO