Dryer Trouble!
A few years back we were stoked to buy a dryer, and functionally it’s done what we wanted it to. We don’t have to think about the weather before doing laundry, and it’s cheap enough on electricity that unless you’re silly enough to run it at night, it’s largely “free”.
But mechanically? Oh what a piece of shit this thing is. It’s a Fisher and Paykel DH8060P3, bought because Sabriena searched for reviews and most of them at the time appeared pretty good - the chief complaint appeared to be that the “sheets” setting would roll the sheets into a ball that would then not dry correctly, but we figured we could work around that.
We’d not had it super long and it developed an irritating squeal, and since it was still under warranty we called up the place we bought it from… who directed us to Fisher and Paykel, who then fucked about for a bit before realizing we were outside the metro area and directed us back to the retailer. Who then came and picked it up, and it took six weeks to get parts for it!
We got it back and it was mostly smooth sailing until about a week ago when it started making a terrible ruckus during use. I described it as “a vibrator on top of an empty vending machine”, like an incredibly irritating medium-frequency rattle throughout the entire cycle.
There are several videos of other people having the same issue, with no resolution. A lot of YouTube videos of folks taking apart and fixing the DE model equivalent, which is cosmetically the same unit but instead of a heat pump it’s an electric element with a condenser… but in practice these are built very differently and the videos are not all that helpful.
Looking into it, it’s properly outside warranty now, and I’m not going to live without this thing for six weeks, so fuck it, let’s have a peek.
Taking the back cover off, the first thing I notice is a wobbly wheel on the belt-driven (hah!) squirrel cage fan for the heat. Removing that belt squelches the noise, so it’s obviously related to that. Crack into further and I notice two things:
First, the rear-drum bearing appears to be made of some high-temperature plastic bushing, rather than a bearing, and it’s chewed to shit. There doesn’t appear to be any play with it though, so I’m thinking this is just a “wear item” - though the front drum bearings (that look something akin to rollerblade wheels) are a common complaint with folks on reviews these days, those appeared to be fine too.
Popped the fan out and got it apart, and the bearings… feel fine? Like they’re a tiny bit dry, and I considered repacking them but I don’t know what lubricant they need and putting the wrong stuff in would probably do more harm than good. So after thoroughly inspecting everything, I put it all back together and…
… would you believe the fucking noise is gone? I have no idea what I did.
I think if it comes back I will just pay someone competent to look at it, but for now I’m going to just be happy it’s shut the fuck up for a time.
For future reference, there are several models of this unit, judging by the serial number ours appears to be a 93281-C, which they helpfully provide a parts diagram for (of which I saved a copy to my Google Drive). Relevant part numbers for ours which I will likely want in the future are:
- “Fan Support” that appears to include the two bearings - H0180800252
- Rear drum bearing - H0020100313B
- Front drum bearing - H0180800201A
I cannot stress enough the aforementioned reviews - checking different consumer reports type websites and it’s basically a cacophony of “these things eat the drum bearings just outside the warranty period”, which is rather irritating. As with everything, I will get as many years out of this thing as I can but when we go to replace it it will not be with a F+P (or a Haier, which appear to be the same make but badge engineered).
