Hello, it’s Rich again from Western Appliance. We did six more repairs today. It seems that appliances never stop breaking.
In this picture we see two different components. One is a dryer high limit thermostat and the other is a thermal fuse. These important components regulate the dryer element’s heat – which is used for heating the interior of the drum when you dry clothes. They do not regulate the temperature inside the dryer drum however. I hope I did not confuse you. The only thing these components do is regulate the dryer element heat alone, that’s it. The dryer uses separate components which regulate the internal drying temperature. I’ll try to explain this a better way – if you wanted to start a campfire with a match you would want that match to burn at a sufficient temperature to light a fire. Once the fire is started then you can regulate the fire with the addition of wood or reducing the fires oxygen. Well, these thermostats regulate the “match”. The heat inside the dryer is controlled by a separate thermostat or temperature sensor.
They are mounted to the electric heating element housing and prevent overheating. It is very common to find these on most every dryer we encounter in Boise and Meridian.