A Dryer For Education

 I bought a new-ish dryer online for 50 bucks.  The seller said it worked fine, but they got a new one to match their new washer and this one was taking up garage space.  Mom and Tom and their pickup truck helped get the used dryer to our house.  You see, our dryer had been catching clothes sometimes and if I could replace it with something newer for 50 dollars, I was going to do it.  So I found myself with a dryer.  Got it home, took the other dryer out, then realized the electric cable we had wasn't going to transfer to this newer dryer unless we did some re-wireing ourselves.  Well, Tom being mechanically inclined went ahead and did that for us.  Bless him.  Then we hauled it in and turned it on.  "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEK," went the dryer like metal was screeching on metal.  "Smell that?"  It was either electrical burning or just that smell when you turn your heater on for the first time of the season.  Either way, something was burning and the dryer kept screeeching with each rotation of the drum.

Turn it off.  Everyone was tired.  I was dejected and felt humility for purchasing this appliance without testing it first.  So, I called the seller and they agreed to tear up my check as long as I didn't bring the dryer back.  Uh...okay.  So, we undid the electric cable and put it back on our old dryer and hauled it back into place and let the squeeky dryer take up space in our entry until we decided what we were doing with it.

I called a repairman and he said he won't even repair a GE dryer because they are junk and not worth the $1.25 the scrapyard would give me for it.  Awesome.

Right around this time, Steve had been reading an article on the benefits of allowing children to take things apart and the ways that it builds their brain as opposed to just seeing things done.  It seemed we had the perfect educational opportunity literally at our front door.

So the dryer became the educational project.  For two and a half months.  Now it is disassembled and some parts have been thrown away others we saved for the scrap yard.  I'm glad to have it outta here!  I suppose I should also say thanks to the seller for the educational dryer. 

What did we all learn?  That dryers have lots of parts and the only tool you need to take a dryer apart is a simple screwdriver.  Pretty cool.  Watch the video at the end of this post to see the education in action.

All that hard work paid off.  We found a dollar!