Home Improvement II: Don’t Do What Donny Don’t Does

Fresh from my smashing success of installing a pedestal sink, I’ve had to tackle another project. Our electric clothes dryer started making a tremendous racket last week, and it was making it difficult to fully enjoy the witty dialog of my favorite cartoon, Dungeons and Dragons. Oh Eric the Paladin Cavalier, will you ever learn?

This isn’t my first confrontation with the dryer over noise issues -- it has a buzzer that goes off when it’s done drying. Well, “buzzer” doesn’t seem quite right; it’s more of a screaming, soul-crushing thunder howl. Every damned time that thing went off I lost hairs and urine, but there was no switch to turn it off. What were the wizards at Whirlpool thinking? After several attempts at locating the source of the claxon ex machina, I found the right spot and disconnected the wires. Much better.

This new noise was different, a grinding sound that suggested all sorts of bad things going on inside there. Clearly, it was time for another showdown with the White Menace. I provide these useful instructions so that you will know how to handle a similar situation in your own home.

1) It’s best if you buy a book on fixing common household appliances. A good book, such as one from the Readers Digest series, will save you time and aggravation. You will quickly recoup the cost of the book by fixing things right the first time.

2) Assuming you’d rather eat glass than buy a book telling you what to do, just start unscrewing stuff. There’s really not that many screws on a dryer, so you’ll get where you need to soon enough.

3) Do NOT unscrew screws willy-nilly. You will end up breaking stuff you didn’t even know you could break.

4) Metal conducts electricity. Throw the circuit breaker for the dryer before you do anything else. Otherwise you’re in for some very unpleasant electrical shocks, probably while you’re up to your elbow in sharp metal bits. This ain’t delivering a calf; you do NOT want to yank your arm out of there, because you’re going to lose skin if you make any sudden moves.

5) Skin grows back pretty fast, and the wounds look pretty cool without being all that serious. Beers will help with the pain.

6) Do NOT drink while working on the dryer.

7) Lordy is lint flammable. Do NOT even think about working on the dryer until you’ve vacuumed out every last mote in there, otherwise you run the risk of a fire you can’t blow out or douse with water.

8) Once the fire has caught, do NOT grab at balls of burning lint to put out the fire. The smoldering lint will stick to you hands and keep right on burning. This hurts quite a bit.

9) Whatever you do, do NOT tell your wife about any temporary setbacks, or else she’ll threaten to call a “professional.” The last thing you want to do is explain to a smirking technician why the dryer door is in upside down.

That’s your basic instructions. Augment as necessary, depending on what your problem is. Turned out my problem was the fan that blows the hot air through the dryer. The blade isn’t staying right on its axis, so it’s beating on the fan’s frame. I wasn’t able to make the racket go away, but I was able to repair the heating coil that I busted, so I’m calling this one a draw. Once my platelet count is back up to normal I’ll take another shot at it.

Nerdlinger update: Mrs. T, queen of all things D&D cartoon-related, informs me that Eric was not a Paladin; he was a Cavalier. The Cavalier class (as well as the Barbarian) was not officially part of the D&D role-playing game until Unearthed Arcana was released, so you can see why I would make that mistake. As Uni would say, "baaaaaa!!"