Runs but does not heat up and does not dry. The service man showed me the reset button. It was tripped for him but does not appear tripped now. We have had this problem intermittently for a year. Every time we think we should call, it starts to dry. Only when it stopped drying consistently, did we call and he reset the cleaned and machine.

Sounds like the tech will solve it forye..

There is a temperture probe in the outgoing air stream that controls the dryer temp by sending a signal to the thermostat control to turn the heating element on and off or the gas, depending on which you have, this is the most common cause of your type of problem. Here is how you change it, the instructions are generic but work for almost any dryer.

GENERAL INSTRUCTION FOR REPLACING A DRYER THERMSTAT

Disconnect the power source to your dryer before you conduct this or any other repair. Either unplug the unit from the wall outlet, remove the appropriate fuse from the fuse box, or flip the appropriate breaker in the circuit breaker panel. Your dryer uses multiple thermostats to regulate its internal temperature. The cycle selected determines which thermostat is used. The cycling thermostat can be found somewhere in the path of air that is leaving the drum. So, it could be found on the blower wheel housing or inside the venting/exhaust system. Dryer thermostats are usually oval shaped and about an inch and a half in length. Also, there should be two wires leading to each thermostat. Label these wires before you remove them so that you are able to correctly reconnect them later.
The wires to the thermostat are connected using metal slip on connectors. Remove the wires by pulling on the connectors, and not the wires themselves. It may be a good idea to use a pair of needle nosed pliers to help you.
The thermostat itself is attached to the dryer with two screws. Remove both screws and discard faulty cycling thermostat. Install new thermostat, securing it in place with two screws. Reconnect the two wires, reassemble your clothes dryer, and restore power to the unit. Run your dryer through a cycle to make sure it is working properly

It is the heating element circuit which need to be checked, since the problem is intermittent and happen any time, it concludes that its coil after heats breakup the circuit.
Reset Button is not causing this problem, as it is heating and then stops suddenly, or heating low.
Let me know more about the dryer so I can investigate further.

If this dryer heats sometimes and does not heat sometimes.that means every thing is proper in the dryer.the simple problem is when the inter nal circuit gets heated the unit stops heating.so you have to just open your device and do a dry solder to the dryers circuit and the soldering joints will become firm.and then check it will work.leave it off for some time so to get the board dry after dry solder then on the dryer.it will work.

thanks.

Could be a problem with the thermal cut off . it is two pieces when you buy them, one is the non resettable type, ( the smaller one ) and the other one is automatically resets itself ( the bigger one ). this could be the problem, it takes a long time to reset.

normally, you replace both of the them.

tnx 4 using fixya,

drcool

HI,

If your dryer doesn't heat, check these:


Power from the house Check to see whether there's power getting to the dryer. Is it plugged in? Check for blown fuses or tripped circuit breakers--your dryer uses two fuses or circuit breakers. The dryer could tumble but not heat if only one of the two fuses is blown. If you have circuit breakers, one of the two circuit breakers can trip, even if the two for the dryer are connected.

Heating element Often a dryer heating element burns out, but doesn't trip the circuit breaker or blow a fuse. The heating element is simply a long coil of special wire. You can check it for continuity with an ohm meter. No continuity means the element is bad and you need to replace it--electric heating elements aren't repairable.

Thermal fuse On many dryers, there's a thermal fuse mounted to the exhaust duct inside the back cover panel. The fuse--which is about an inch long--is usually embedded in black resin and mounted in a white plastic housing. If the fuse has blown, you need to replace it. (You can't re-set it.)

Wiring A common problem is for the main wiring connection from the house, at the dryer, to burn and break its connection. Because the dryer can still tumble with partial power, the connection may be only partially defective. You may need to replace both the power cord to the dryer and the terminal block inside the dryer that the wire is attached to.