My dryer won’t heat

Hi Paul,

Electric driers have a heating element that can fail and is pretty easy to test if you have a multi-meter. They create heat by passing a relatively large amount of current through a slightly resistive material. Start by just opening up the drier and check the connections…if you’re super lucky, the element wasn’t plugged in fully and just needs to be reseated.

There is a partial guide that shows how to find the heating wires that I found on the site here. According to the guide, the element should read 10 Ohms, which also sounds right to me (they’re almost always less than 50 Ohms). If it reads infinite ohms, it burnt clear through and should be replaced (I’ve done it on a few driers and it’s not too difficult…usually a couple of screws). If it reads zero ohms, it shorted and should be replaced as well but my guess is that your breaker would trip when the heat tried to kick on and you didn’t mention that, so I think there’s a 90% chance your heating element needs to be replaced.

Speed Queen AES17AWF Heating Element and Belt Replacement

However, there is also likely a thermostat and a relay control circuit that controls turning the element on and off. That could be bad too. Many appliances have a wiring diagram on the back or just inside a panel. I don’t I know your level of repair savvy, but relays can be tested pretty easily with a multimeter and a power supply if you know what you’re doing (again, it’s not too difficult). Hope this helps motivate you to fix it yourself…it’s probably less than a $40 part. It’d take me about 30 minutes to do the job, so hoping you can git er done in less than an hour and save yourself a couple hundred bucks of an in-home repair person.