I have a 5 year old GE Clothes Dryer that used to have a 2 second squeal of some sort when you started it, but otherwise worked really well. Earlier in the week, it would not start, instead there would be an electrical hum when you twisted the start switch. Everyone I talked to said that I probably had a burnt out motor.
I called an appliance repair guy and it did the same thing for him. He said “The motor is burned out.” He did not open up the back to take a look at it. He put something in the door slot and twisted the drum by hand while he held the start switch. It started to work. He said that the motor was still bad, that it was not strong enough to start it on it’s own, and that it would be $220 to fix it. I said OK.
Oddly enough, the dryer works fine now. It seems to start better now. It no longer squeals like it used to and I do not have to hold the switch to make it start. I started the dryer at least 10 times empty. I then put in the heaviest stuff I could find and it started fine. I dampened some towels and put it in and it worked fine. I let it run for 30 minutes, I had to go to work so I turned it off, but the towels were almost dry.
So, is it possible that the dryer was simply in some sort of bind and that the repair guy loosened it by twisting it by hand? Or could it be that the motor is on it’s way out and is temporarily having enough strength to get get the drum rolling? Thanks in advance.
**Key point that I forgot to say!: ** After he told me the price, he left and said that he was going to have to order the motor and that he could not fix it until the motor comes in next Tuesday. He actually did not do anything to the dryer other than spin the drum and get it started. He then left and that is when I started experimenting with the dryer.
It sounds like one of the motor windings is fried, and the motor happened to stop with that winding in place to be active. If it stops in the same place agian your dryer won’t start once again.
By spinning the drum, the repair guy moved the motor to a position where a different winding was active.
Bottom line: New motor. Oh, and the squeal was probably the drive belt slipping on the motor pulley while the drum accelerated.
Only five years old?
It runs after the service tech leaves, having given the drum a turn?
If it were mine I’d unplug it, remove the back, check and OIL all the bearings. With the drive belt removed OR the drive wheel free to turn, check the motor. May be permanently lubricated ball bearings or oiled sleeve bearings with oil holes or tubes.
If everything checks out ok and everything has been put in place, replace the back.
Plug it in. If it runs OK call the service tech and CANCEL the motor.
He should have given it at least a quick check “under the hood” BEFORE recommending a new motor at $220.
He figured you would fall for his superficial check and he could make a $100 +/- for an easy replacement instead of little or nothing.
My guess is that you may have a sticky centrifugal switch in your motor. It would explain the squealing and the necessity of holding the start switch to get it running. If the serviceman turned the drum backwards, it may well have temporarily freed the switch so that it starts fine for now. IME, it will fail again in the near future.
Another possibility that just occured to me is that there may have been some obstruction on the drum or one of the roller supports that went from just rubbing to more actively impeding motion. A backwards spin may have knocked it loose, in which case you’re probably in the clear. It would be worth your while to disassemble the thing and see if there’s any debris that could have caused this scenario. At the very least, you’re bound to find several dollars worth of loose change inside the cabinet under the drum.
As I started to read your post (re the electrical hum), my first thought was going to be to tell you to start the drum by hand. Assuming that worked, my guess was going to be a bad capicitor. Could that be it? I don’t know too much about motors, but my understanding has always been that they use a capacitor to kick start the motor and when the capicitor goes bad you can usually ‘kick start’ it by hand.