The dryer starts warm, runs for ten or fifteen minutes, then the heat drops out and the drum keeps turning cold. Half an hour later it is warm again. A load that used to take an hour now takes two, or never quite finishes.
The short version
- Warm, cold, warm again is the dryer protecting itself from blocked airflow, not a broken part.
- Clear the door filter and rinse the condenser, then run an empty cycle.
- Still cold? A tripped thermostat or a tired fan: Minor $139 or Standard $209 plus the part, on top of the $129 diagnostic.
Across Wollongong and the Illawarra this is the dryer call we take most, and the cause is almost never a broken part. Here is what is going on inside, what to clean before you ring, and what it costs when it does need us.
What is actually happening when the heat cuts out
A dryer is a heater and a fan. The fan pulls air across the element, through the drum and out through the lint filter, and the moisture leaves with it. The heat only works while the air keeps moving. When the airflow drops, the temperature inside climbs instead, and a thermostat does its job: it cuts the heat before anything gets hot enough to matter.
The drum keeps turning, the clothes go cold, and once the dryer has cooled the heat comes back on and the cycle repeats. That warm, cold, warm pattern is a dryer protecting itself from a blocked airway, not a dryer that is broken.
Clean the filter and the condenser first
Lint is the whole story on most of these calls. The filter in the door should be cleared every single cycle; a filter you can see through is the test. On a condenser or heat-pump dryer there is a second stage, the condenser behind the kick panel at the bottom, which traps the fine lint the filter misses.
It wants rinsing under the tap every couple of cycles and most people have never had it out. On a vented dryer, check the hose and the outlet outside are not kinked or packed with fluff, and that a bird has not set up house in the vent. Clean those, run an empty cycle, and a good share of “heats then stops” dryers are fixed before we are ever called.
The thermostat that tripped
Some safety thermostats reset themselves as the dryer cools, which is why the heat comes and goes. Others hold until they are reset by hand, and the dryer then runs stone cold on every cycle until someone does it. If the dryer is clean and still runs cold, that is usually where we find the fault, and the first visit is a clean, a reset and a test with the back off to confirm the fan is pulling properly.
A thermostat that keeps tripping after a thorough clean has either tired out or is telling us the airflow problem is deeper in the machine, such as a fan that has slowed or a duct packed solid, and we fix that rather than keep resetting.
Vented, condenser and heat-pump dryers
A vented dryer is the simplest: an element and a fan, blowing damp air out of the house. A condenser dryer uses heat to draw the moisture out and condenses it into a tank or a drain, so it is kinder on the laundry and has that second filter stage to keep clean.
A heat-pump dryer is the slowest and the most efficient of the three, and the one where a genuine failure is expensive, because the heat pump itself is the costly part. The airflow rule is the same on all of them, and so is the symptom when it is ignored.
A burning smell or a very hot casing
Very rare, and the dryer’s built-in protection is designed for exactly this: if the fan stops altogether, the safety shuts the heat down. If you smell burning or the top is too hot to rest a hand on, stop the dryer, pull the plug and ring us. Do not run it again to see if it happens twice.
What else we find once the back is off
Heating elements do fail, but rarely; most “no heat” dryers are a blocked filter or condenser and a tripped thermostat, which is why we do not carry elements on the van. If yours really has gone, we quote it, order it and fit it on a return visit with no second call-out fee. What we do find, on big-family dryers especially, is wear. One customer rang about a dryer leaving black marks on the clothes and was half convinced it was possessed.
The drum rollers had worn through, so the drum was riding on metal. New rollers, the inside cleaned out, and it was done in the same visit. Another, Mark, wrote: “Tyson was very punctual & communicated well on pricing, time frames & parts required to fix my dryer.” That is the shape of a dryer repair: the price, the time frame and the part explained before anything is ordered.
What it costs
The diagnostic visit is $129 across Wollongong and the close-in Illawarra, or $169 further out (Helensburgh to Woonona in the north, Berry to Nowra in the south), and if you go ahead it is the first line of your repair price, so you only pay the balance. A clean, reset and test with no part needed is a Minor repair at $139.
A thermostat, a set of drum rollers or a fan is one accessible part, a Standard repair at $209 plus the part, quoted first. An element that has to come in is the same Standard tier on the return visit. A failed heat pump is the one dryer fault where we put the price against a new machine and let you decide. The full price list has every tier and a worked example.
What you can safely check
- Clear the door filter and hold it to the light; replace it if it is torn.
- Condenser or heat-pump dryer: take the condenser out from behind the kick panel and rinse it.
- Vented dryer: check the hose is not kinked and the outlet outside is clear.
- Run an empty cycle with the room door open and see whether the heat holds.
- Do not open the back or bypass a thermostat; if it still runs cold, that is our job.
When to call us
When a clean has not fixed it, when the dryer runs cold on every cycle, when it is noisy or marking clothes, or at the first hint of a burning smell. Tell us the brand and whether it is vented, condenser or heat-pump, and we bring the thermostats, rollers and belts that fit most machines.
Our dryer repairs Wollongong page covers the faults we see most, and the guide to a dryer that runs but never heats picks up where this one leaves off. Lint care between visits is in our maintenance tips.
Most jobs we’re there within the week, often within a couple of days, and we confirm by text, usually within the hour in business hours. Book a repair online any time, or call (02) 4288 2824, Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm.
Local repair pages: Dryer repairs Shellharbour · Dryer repairs Wollongong · Dryer repairs Dapto.
