What People Tell Us When They Call About a Dryer
Dryer calls are the most predictable of any appliance we work on, and nearly all of them fall into one of six types.
What Fails, and Why
Four parts account for most of it, and the vent causes most of the rest.
Where the dryer sits, and what that changes
Most are in a laundry room. Plenty are in a garage, a basement, or a hallway closet, and the further the machine is from an outside wall, the longer the vent run, and the more turns it takes.
Long runs and multiple angles are where the trouble is. A short, straight vent is worth more to a dryer than any part you can put in it.
The vent is not part of the dryer and causes more dryer faults than any part on it
Every failure above can be caused, or brought forward by years, by a vent that can't move air. The dryer runs hotter, the fuse blows, the element works harder and fails sooner, and the clothes take three cycles in the meantime.
What We Fix on a Dryer
Dryer Brands We Service
Whirlpool, Maytag, Amana, Roper, Admiral, GE, Kenmore, Samsung, LG, Electrolux, and Speed Queen electric dryers. Samsung and LG we take as washers and dryers, and Speed Queen we take as dryers only.
Worth mentioning when you call:
A machine already taken apart with parts swapped into it. If it's only been opened and nothing replaced, that's fine, but disassembly we didn't need to do is chargeable.
Repair or Replace a Dryer?
Dryers are the easiest yes in this trade. They're mechanically simple, the parts that fail are cheap, and the same repair on a fifteen-year-old machine buys about as much time as it does on a five-year-old one. An element, a fuse, a belt, or a set of rollers on almost any dryer is worth doing.
The exception is a control board on an older machine, because a board can cost a meaningful share of a new dryer and older dryers rarely need one. If the diagnosis lands on a board on a machine with fifteen years on it, you'll hear the honest recommendation.
The rule people arrive with is that a repair over half the price of a replacement means buy new. For dryers, that rule is almost never triggered, and it's worth knowing that before you go shopping. A dryer with a failed element is not a dead dryer.
The longer version, appliance by appliance→
What It Costs
$100 service call. It comes off the repair if you go ahead within thirty days. After thirty days, a return visit is a further $50 to $100.
We don't publish dryer repair prices. What we will say is that dryers sit at the cheaper end of appliance repair, because the parts are inexpensive and the machine comes apart quickly. That is the honest shape of it without pretending a number covers every job.
You'll receive one all-in price before any work starts, covering parts, labor, tax, and the service call. If the vent needs cleaning too, that's a separate number, said up front. If a second fault turns up once the machine is open, you're told, and it's priced then, not quietly added.
We offer a 10% military discount to active-duty service members and veterans as a thank-you for your service. Mention it when you call.
Exclusions to the 90-day warranty are listed in full on the FAQs.
How the Visit Goes
Why We Check the Vent Before We Quote the Dryer
Checking the vent first is how we make sure you never pay for the same fault twice.
A dryer works by moving hot, wet air out of your house. When the vent can't move that air, the machine doesn't simply run less efficiently. It runs hotter. The thermostat cycles more often, the heating element works harder than it was built to, and the thermal fuse, which exists to catch exactly this, eventually does its job and blows.
So somebody calls because the dryer is dead. A technician fits a thermal fuse, the dryer works, and everyone is happy. Then it blows again, because nothing about the actual cause changed. The same story runs with heating elements: replace the element, don't touch the vent, and the new element lives a shorter life than the one it replaced.
This is why we check the vent on every dryer call before quoting any part, and it's why our warranty says out loud that damage from a restricted vent isn't covered. Both come from the same place. The vent is the thing that decides how long the repair lasts. It's also the honest answer to a question we get a lot: my clothes take three cycles; is the dryer dying? Usually not. Usually the dryer is working exactly as designed against a vent that won't let it. A vent clean takes ten to fifteen minutes with a rotary brush kit, and on a vent that's never been cleaned, it can produce a surprising amount of lint.
What Customers Say
Every Google review we have received, shown live and in each customer's own words.
Questions We Get Asked
My dryer takes three cycles to dry a load. Is it dying?
Usually not. That's the classic restricted-vent symptom, and the dryer is often working exactly as designed against a vent that won't let the moisture out. Worth checking before you replace anything.
The dryer is completely dead. Is that expensive?
Often, no. See the thermal fuse above. The part that most commonly kills a dryer outright is also one of the least expensive on it.
Can you clean the vent while you're here?
Yes, and it's the most common pairing we do. Ten to fifteen minutes with a rotary brush kit, cleaned from both the inside and the outside. It's quoted separately and up front.
How often should a dryer vent be cleaned?
Every year if it's a busy household or you have pets that shed. Otherwise every one to five years is usually fine, and it depends a lot on how long the vent run is. That is Aaron's own recommendation, based on his experience. We'll tell you what yours looked like when we clean it, and send a reminder when it's due again.
What brands do you work on?
You'll find the full list above, under What We Fix on a Dryer. In short, we service most of the dryers you'll find in an Alabama laundry room.
Can you fix it the same day?
Dryers have the best odds of any appliance we take, because the common parts ride on the van. Give us the model number on the phone and there's a good chance it's done on the first visit.
Mine is stacked in a closet. Can you get to it?
Usually. Sometimes the washer needs to be moved first, so mention it when you call, and we'll plan the visit around it. A photo of the space helps.
It's making a noise but it still works. Can I leave it?
For a while, yes. Nobody needs to drop everything for a rumbling dryer. The reason not to leave it indefinitely comes down to what a seized roller does to the parts around it.
My dryer smells hot. What do I do?
Unplug it and call us. Of everything on this page, that is the only symptom we would want to hear about the same day.
What does the warranty cover?
Ninety days on parts and labor for the repair we did. The one to know on a dryer is that vent-related damage of the kind described above isn't covered, and neither are replacement control boards. Full exclusions on the FAQs.
The brands this comes up on most
Each of these brands has its own page covering common faults, parts availability, and where to find the model plate.
Where We Work, and How to Reach Us
Dryer repair and vent cleaning right across the metro, from the north-side towns around Gardendale down through Birmingham and out Over the Mountain. The full list is on the service area page, and if your town isn't on it, ask anyway.
Call or text (205) 883-9703. Let us know the brand, the model number, and what it's doing. If the dryer lives in a garage, a basement, or a closet, say so, because that changes what the vent run looks like.
Two towns have a dryer page of their own. Hoover, because so many houses there have gas, and it is worth saying which kind you have when you call. Vestavia Hills, because the machines there are newer than the ducts behind them.
Calls and texts Monday through Friday.
Every town we cover