Ran into a guy at a laundromat in Tucson who fixed my dryer with a paperclip

My dryer stopped heating and this older dude watched me freak out for 10 minutes before walking over and jamming a paperclip into the thermal fuse. Has anyone else had a random stranger fix something of yours in a weird way?

3 comments

3 Comments

rileyprice5d ago

7 years ago my washing machine started shaking so bad it almost walked across the garage floor. This old timer my dad knew came over, pulled out a quarter, and used it to tighten up the leveling legs because apparently they were just loose from the vibration over time. He also showed me how putting a zip tie around the drain hose keeps it from popping off and flooding your floor. I still use his trick with the paperclip thing on my dryer too, it works way better than spending 80 bucks on a service call for something that simple.

emma_wells835d ago

Wait, a paperclip can fix a dryer?

young.ryan5d ago

I saw a repair guy on YouTube talk about this exact thing. He said if your dryer stops heating but still tumbles, it's often a bad thermal fuse or a stuck door switch. According to him, a paperclip can bypass the door switch to test if that's the issue - you just carefully stick it into the connector to close the circuit. But he STRONGLY warned not to run it that way long term because it's a safety thing. So it's more of a diagnostic trick, not a real fix. Made me realize how many parts in a dryer are just simple switches.