milessmith•26d agoMost Upvoted

Rant: The dryer drum seized up mid-load on a Tuesday

I was at a house in Arlington last month, 3 jobs deep, and the customer's dryer just stopped spinning with a full load of wet towels. Turned out the belt had snapped and wrapped around the idler pulley, took me an extra 45 minutes to dig it out. Has anyone else run into a belt failure that cascaded into way more work?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_wright26d ago

Blew a belt on a dryer last winter and found a sock fused to the heating coil somehow.

theac6326d ago

Have you checked the idler pulley itself when you get a belt snap like that? In my experience that pulley can get hot and seize up if the belt has been slipping for a while, which makes the whole job a pain. If you're already digging out belt pieces, take a minute to spin that pulley by hand and see if it's rough or stiff. I've had times where I replaced the belt but had to come back a week later because the pulley gave out and shredded the new belt too. On a few old dryers I've also found the belt path gets misaligned from wear on the drum support rollers, so a quick spin check on those can save you a return visit. Just a little extra time upfront beats a callback for sure.