Cleaning the Dryer

[buddy]

I have Heubsch 30LB Stack Dryers about 10 yrs old. The infamous 32DG series. I don't think previous owner ever cleaned lints around and behind the drum. I had a fire in one of the dryers yesterday while I was at my regular day job and I got a call from local police on my cell about the fire. Luckily no one was hurt and there was no visible damage. The fire was contained within the dryer.

I went there and opened up front panel of one of the other dryers and I found tons of lint around the drum. I must have pulled out dozens of lint pillows. Then I noticed lint behind the drum. I took out the drum for the first time (wasn't easy) and removed tons of lint. I spent nearly two hours just cleaning one dryer. Here is my question:

Is there an easier or better way to clean out the lint from behind the drum? (May be without removing the drum). I have 13 stacked dryers (26 if you count individually) . I figured I can do one per night after closing - it will take me a month to clean up the dryers and Now I am worried about fire in other dryers before I have chance to clean them out. I want to expedite cleaning these dryers. I wish I could contract out cleaning this dryers ASAP but I don't know any company or people who would do this.

Any suggestions/Tips to clean these dryers faster would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Westlake]

I have the same dryers make and model. Up to now, I have never cleaned the lint behind the drum. In fact I have never even removed a drum. My dryers have been in desperate need of cleaning behind the drum for sometime now and I have tried several ways to clean back there without removing the drum and non have been successful. I do clean out around the drum about every 3 or 4 months. You may want to add this to you routine maintenance schedule.

Sorry I cannot advise you on an easier way to remove that lint, but perhaps you can give me a quick rundown on how to remove the drum. I noticed that there are 4 small bolts and 1 large bolt on the rear of the dryer, holding the drum in place. Do you need to remove all of these then simply pull the drum out?

[buddy]

Removing Drum is fairly easy but time consuming because of very little clearance around the drum.

First Remove the front panel and Lint Screen. Unscrew the two rollers then lift the drum to remove the rollers. Undo the Drum belt that goes around the drum from the pulley.

Go behing the dryer and remove the Large Center Nut. (do not remove the other four corner nuts). Go back to the front and start pulling the drum towards you. If it gets stuct you may have to jiggle and turn it but eventually the drum will come out.

[Anonymous]

this note gives me a chance to again say how much i hate these dryers.

However, I've got an answer to your question. I've got 6 of these @#%^ machines and the previous owner came up with a solution for this problem. He bored about a 5" diameter hole in the back plate of the dryer drum and screwed on a sheetmetal (removable) cap. This allows the owner to get back there and remove lint without taking the drum off. Works great. However, my first recommendation would be to get rid of the machines altogether.

[pete f]

I have a couple of these. I put a sweep kit on 1 the other day, that is a band that goes around the front part of the drum where all the holes are, it should help keep lint from the sides of the drum, and keep nails, scews, ext from tearing into the wires, also helps with heat.. I had trouble with the blower fan scraping something so had to tear the whole back of the dryer apart. While I had the front off I put in the sweep kit, which I have had for about a year..
I saw a huge amount of lint behind the drum, I wondered how to remove the drum also. Thanks for the post. Now I got another thing to do..

[buddy]

So that's what it was - Sweep Kit-. When removed the drum I saw this white thick band aroud the drum with a metal strip around it. Because of this sweep kit it took me lot longer to remove and put the drum back because it would get caught on the side frames. However mine was towards the back of the drum- may it slipped back over time.

Is this sweepkit standard or optional?. Does it come standard with dryers or is it something you put it on if you need it?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

What i've heard is that it was an after thought on the SQ design. The original design had the coin mech and coin box in the same open air as the lint path. And of course the coin mechs got plugged with lint. This sweep kit does help that and supposedly improves air flow and gives a quicker dry. Most of my sweep kits are all shredded up now from nails and screws and should be replaced. But I still experience lint plugged coin mechs from machines on ones with sweep kits still intact. And I do have adequate make-up air.
It's tough to get that lint out of the crevices of the coin mech. What I've done is just unscrew the coin switch from the mech and put the whole plastic asm. in the dishwaser. cleans up well.

I've heard there is a metal coin mech replacement out there for these old plastic coin mechs. Does anyone have these ? I've heard they are better and stay clean.

[buddy]

After that fire yesterday I am nervous wreck. I want to clean all the dryers ASAP before it happens again. Those DAMN Lints.

[Howard]

I also have several of these stacks in a mat (about 12 years old). I have some troubles iwth them, but they aren't the worse.
The weep kit is a pain, but it is essential to reducing lint and maintaining the proper airflow. One of the worse things that can happen is to have a tron lint screen. This not only spreads lint but seriously reduced the air flow through the dryer and if often the source of many "No Heat" intermittent problems.

I have had a drum or two off. My reason, at the time, was to replace the "bumpers" in the drum. Eventually, they will get knocked askew from tennis shoes and other heavy stuff in the dryers.

The lint buildup around the dryer (left and right and directly behind the drum) can be done without removing the drum. This is where I see all of the partially burned lint. I have not seen any potential for fire from the lint directly behind the drum (that can't be reached from the front).

Of course, that doesn't mean it can't happen.

I have the plastic coin acceptors and blow them out with the pressurized air can (used on computers). It takes four or five seconds.

My 32 DG's are "WascoDry's" and I wish I could find two or three more. They would not only match cosmetically, but I think they are pretty good workhorses. Twelve years with no major problems (and hard use) is my kind of dryer.

I suspect I will be reading all about the newer ADC's in this posting for some time to come. I love them too, but I like making money even better.

[buddy]

When these 32DG are running and if you peek in through the door, you see flames fire off and towards the back near the top. I presume this is normal or should I be worried?

[Howard]

I don't know. I have never looked through the front door to view flames. If you bend down and look up through the airholes in the back, you can see the flame. It is bent toward the front of the dryer by the airflow (to heat the drum air). That is normal.

Next time I am at this mat, I will look through the dryer door!

[Andy]

I cleaned my 32DG's this spring. They were packed with lint. One was so stuffed that the drum was shifted up and caught a piece of the inner cabinet and jammed. After my "accident investigation" I surmized that the lint buildup caused this shift in the drum which in turn led to the jammed drum. I then inspected the rest of the dryers and realized if they were not cleaned in short order I would experience the drum jam on every unit.

It is not necessary to remove the drum, I just removed the fronts panels and used a shop vac with a long wand to clean them out.

In short: clean them out now or get the jam.

[buddy]

You cant access the back of the drum by vaccuum. The only way to get behind the drum is by removing the drum. You would not believe hum much lint I found behind the drum. The amount of lint that I find behind and around the drum fills up entire 30 gallon garbage bag. The lint was compacted and stacked so tight that I was literally pulling out pillows of lint about 2-3 inches thick. If it was a foam I could build a crib mattress out of it.

[Andy]

I had a problem with buildup around the circumference of the drum, thank goodness I didn't have it behind requiring me to remove the drum.