Starring Dexter in: The Cat Scan!

Last weekend, my clothes dryer began to make an alarming squeal. The washer and dryer were both purchased in 2002 by the prior owners of my house. That makes them both 15 years old, which I understand is rather long in the tooth for those sorts of appliances. I wondered: could the dryer be fixed, or was it a goner?

So I did what any normal person would do. I did google searches to determine what the most likely causes of the squeal could be. I polled my Facebook friends: Had anybody ever done their own repairs? Was it easy? Should we skip it all and simply order a new dryer instead? The advice was mixed.

My husband and I talked about simply using dryers in town from now on. (Not an ideal solution, IMO.) We looked up prices of new models of dryers (around $400 for a comparable model); fretted a bit; considered Doing Nothing for a while, or at least until we run out of clean clothes. After all, you sort of have to have a refrigerator and running hot water (been there, done that), but can one live without a dryer?

I watched some videos online of men tearing dryers apart, and explaining in startlingly simplistic words and calm, soft-spoken tones exactly how to do it. (I warn you this, though, gentle reader: in real life, the task was not quite as simple and obvious as those kind, soft-spoken gentlemen led us to believe!)

I searched for replacement parts online, and discovered the costs of some of the typical items that might need to be replaced were rather reasonable. Maybe $25 for a belt, $8 for a roller, around $20 for an idler pulley. Sounds cheap, doesn't it?

And after all, my husband and I fixed the clothes washing machine ourselves a few years back by replacing a $20 hose. Could we fix the dryer too? (There was also our big success in replacing the kitchen faucet earlier this year, which contributed to us feeling our oats as repair technicians.)

So we decided to tear the thing apart on Sunday and see if we could discover an obvious problem. On this morning, I asked him what was the first thing we should do. My husband worked in a hospital for many years. He suggested that - just like in the hospital - we should conduct a cat scan to see if Dexter could detect anything obvious. So we brought in a Feline Technician(Trademark)!

In this photo, you may see Dexter conducting a thorough cat scan on the dryer. Alas, he did not discover any information of immediate use. You may note, though, that his tail and ears were standing pert and straight upright! Those are good signs!

Such technicians don't come cheap, though. Dexter extorted a number of soft treats out of me for services rendered. And then my husband and I tore the dryer apart, starting with the lower front panel.

Making the task even more challenging was the fact that there is only a foot or two of extra space in the laundry room around the appliances. Very tight quarters indeed! (If you plan to assist, I recommend you be Very Good Friends with your repairman. But be warned: there's no extra space for any sort of Hanky Panky!)

Alas, I must report that - like Dexter - we did not encounter anything obviously wrong. The belt seemed a bit old, but not dry or tattered or torn or too loose. The pulley seemed to be doing its thing. The rollers seemed to be functioning just as they should.

We did encounter some dust and lint, which we removed, and cleaned it all thoroughly. And my husband put Armorall on the belt, and lubed a thing or two. We even got out the duct tape and the WD40, just in case.

For we remembered that quote: “All of life’s problems can be solved with two things - duct tape and WD40. If it moves and it shouldn’t, you need duct tape. And if it doesn’t move and it should, you need WD40.” (Author: Unknown.)

Then we plugged the dryer back in and watched it work with all its guts exposed, which was sort of fascinating in a weird way. (This is what passes for entertainment at our house. Doesn't it make YOU want to be a homeowner too?) No, it did not squeal, but there was no actual laundry in it at the time. So who knows.

And then we put it all back together. Oh, the relief as tab A slid into slot B with an audible snap. All the parts we took out went right back in. Every screw was in place. The whole process from cat scan to tear-apart to back-together took about three hours. ("Boy, that's the most fun I've had in a long time!" my husband said with a grimace.) And then we plugged it in and turned it on, and it did its thing, and it did not squeal.

But that, as I said, was without actual soaking wet laundry in it. So the great mystery of the week is this: Will the dryer squeal again when I run an actual load of wash through it? Are you a lover of mystery stories, like me? Tune in later in the week, dear reader, to learn what happens next!

The soundtrack . . . well, I couldn't decide between these two songs, so I'm including both. The first one is a rock song, the second country. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, with Fix It. And Alan Jackson, with the Talkin' Song Repair Blues (OK, in the Jackson video, it's a car they're talking about. But I suspect the repair of appliances to be similar.)