Okay, I'm not the handiest guy around. I know this about myself. But when I was at work one day my wife called and said there was a noise that came from the dryer and she started smelling burning rubber. My first guess was the dryer belt snapped. For some reason, I thought she told me that it stopped tumbling, which would be a dead giveaway. However, that wasn't true. I didn't find that out until I got the thing open and saw that the belt was still intact. I had the dryer open already, though, so I went ahead and pulled the drum out and looked at the belt. It was not in great shape and everything I could find online indicated that it probably should be replaced. So I went ahead and got a new belt and have been trying to replace it for a while now...to no avail. It's a GE electric dryer and it is so poorly designed for this task I am ready to shoot someone. Now I've got my dryer in a sad state of disassembly with no real idea of what I'm doing and I can't seem to get this new belt on. On top of that, since the previous belt wasn't broken, I really have no idea if this is even going to fix things. Has anyone here ever had to have a dryer repaired? What was the cost? I'm trying to get an idea if it is in my best interest to call a service person out to look at it or if I need to just buy a new dryer. I've pretty much given up on doing this myself.
Before you buy a new dryer, check the vent pathway. Sometimes (a lot of times) those get very clogged and can make very scary burning smells. If the vent pathway (sorry, I'm sure there is a better name but you know what I mean) is pretty free, then I would bet you're looking at a factor of 2. Repair guy for this dryer: X New basic dryer: 2X. We haven't bought a dryer in a while so I have no idea what they run now.
That's something I didn't mention in my original post. The vent pathway had a LOT of crap in it. I don't know if that was the source of the burning smell or not, but I cleaned all that junk out. I've got my father in law coming over this afternoon and he is going to help me to put the new belt on. Hopefully after that it will be running fine again.
Well, I tried, but this thread is headed nowhere fast. :grin: Unless we get a funny father-in-law-repairs-dryer story.
Well, put this thread up there with most boring ever, then. Father in law came over. Helped me put the belt back on. Seems to be working great now. Neither of us even hurt ourselves. It's a load (laundry load...get it? Ah screw it, this thread is a write off) off my mind, though.
