dryer outlet blown?

13 years ago

To start, I know absolutely nothing about electrical circuitry.

We came home from being away 2 days and our dryer will not turn on. It was working fine the day we left. I flipped the breaker switches to the laundry room and then tried the entire house and that didn't help, so we figure it's the dryer. However, I tried to plug a vacuum into an outlet today in our kitchen and no go. Another one in the kitchen worked fine. Tried the breakers again but it didn't help.

So, we are thinking the dryer problem is the outlet. However, if the breaker switch doesn't help it then how do we fix it? And why is it two different random outlets in our house that are not necessarily close to one another? We haven't checked any other outlets.

BTW, we have a new home, built in 2004, and it has some protection, like if our child sticks a screwdriver in the outlet it's suppose to shut it down and not electrocute her. We haven't tested this of course!

Any help would be appreciated!

Cindy

Comments (4)

fahrenheit_451
13 years ago
Did you properly push the panel breaker switch all the way to its off position to actually reset the switch? This must be done to reset the switch; simply pushing back to the ON position will not properly reset the switch.

Also, is your dryer a gas model dryer? This would entail your dryer running off a 110V outlet.

Look for the GFCI switch in your house to determine whether it kicked off, and reset it.
cootielu
Original Author
13 years ago
How do I "properly push the panel breaker switch all the way to its off position to actually reset the switch"? I pushed the switch over to off and then pushed it back to on again. isn't that how you do it?

Thanks for your help
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fahrenheit_451
13 years ago
If the breaker actually tripped, you will feel some resistance when you go you reset by pushing it further to the off position. It feels somewhat like a stiff spring. That stiffness while pushing resets the breaker inside.

Switching off a breaker normally versus a breaker tripping itself will have exhibit no further resistance as it has reached the full OFF position through you manually switching it OFF.
cynic
13 years ago
You've checked the breakers and if you're uncomfortable with electricity you should then get someone competent to come and look at it and test the outlets. You could buy a circuit tester if you wanted though I think it'd be work a few dollars to call an electrician.

The dryer could be a problem with the outlet or the dryer itself. It'd take some more diagnosis to determine which. If it's a gas dryer, you could try a different outlet or as I said before you could get a circuit tester.

If it's a gas dryer, it's possible the outlet you tried in the other area is on the same circuit as the dryer and it could be a bad breaker. There's a lot of possibilities.