Tumble Dryer Shorting Electrical Circuit?

hi there just incase any one has the same prob

our Indesit dryer has been tripping the rccd on occasion's, would leave it for a few days to dry out and all would be well, by the time the engineer would arrive it always worked.
when it was playing up it would start for a fraction of a second and then Tripp the rccd.
so i removed the heating element mounted in the steel blister at the rear of the machine and found that a sticky residue of fluff had built up around the terminals at either end of heater and bridging over to the chassis, so it appears that once this fluff became damp enough it would allow current to pass through, setting of the rccd.
all i did was to gently clean around the terminals with cotton buds and clean with electrical contact cleaner.
and all is well.
remember to isolate power and don't use wd40 as it is flammable and conducts electricity.
thanks to all above for pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks Scott

Scott
March 2007

dave,

Thanks for your help on this one. I managed to get an engineer our to look at the machine as it was still under warranty. He said that when we moved house we can't have emptied the water out it and unless it is kept level the water would slosh around the other parts.

That is exactly what happened and it caused the heater to short out. He replaced the heater and that has fixed the machine. This would be consistent with your machine working but not heating.

Cheers
Mark

Mark
December 2006

hi just thought i would let you know i had the exact same problem with my crusader machine..which no longer heats up but since it stopped heating up its stopped tripping the fuse box so asume its because of the priblem the machine has thats tripping the fuses

dave
December 2006

Dave H.

Thanks for the help, I hadn't realised this but I think that you are correct it is not an individual fuse that is tripping its the master one (which i assume indicates the rccd that you are talking about).

Not very experienced in these things but will take the back off the tumble dryer and have a look. Any pointers on what I should be looking for?

Cheers
Mark

Mark Baxter
December 2006

are you sure that it is tripping the fuse and not the r.c.c.d.(earth leakage trip)? the r.c.c.d. will trip on earth faults and not on overcurrent. if your washer has an earth fault it will trip the r.c.cd. your previous home my not have had one fitted,so your washer would have run ok..If this is the case you will have to repair the earth fault on your machine.hope this helps.

dave-h
December 2006