Westfalia For DIY Tools  

1. If yours is a condensing dryer, remove and clean the slide out condensing box regularly. The best way to do this is to use the “JET” setting on your garden hose attachment, and do it on the lawn. Spray through from all 4 sides, but any jammed lumps of wet fluff can be pushed out with a long plastic ruler. Leave to dry and replace.
2. If yours fails to heat up, check in case there is a red reset switch at the back, as some models have these safety cut-outs.
3. If yours is a WASHER and DRYER combined, you may find these are not as efficient as the 2 seperate machines are. That is you will need a longer drying time to achieve the same result.
4. If your WASHER/DRYER is not getting hot at all, but the air circulation motor is running, then one or both heating elements have gone, or the electronic control for those has failed. You can check for this by taking the top off the machine, and connecting a 250 volt test lamp to the heater terminals (with the machine initally OFF of course!), then trying the drying cycle. There are usually 2 spiral elements screwed into the heater box that leads to the circulation motor. If the light comes on, then that element has failed. If you have a test meter, then use that of course, but the TEST LAMP is safest. Most will measure around 50 OHMS.
5. Sometimes, the WASHER/DRYER air circulation motors can become very noisy. This is usually due to mechanical vibration of the worn shaft bearings. You can try removing it, taking off the metal fan part, cleaning out any fluff debris, and oiling the bearings SPARINGLY, but I have found this only reduces the noise to about half, it does not eradicate it. See replacement FAQ HERE.
6. For normal dryers, no heating up usually means that the heater element or safety cut-out has failed. For some makes, like CREDA, and HOTPOINT the thermostat and cut-out come as a pair, so you have to replace both at the same time. A meter is best to check the element, on resistance, look for a reading of around 30 to 50 OHMS. See further information on cut-outs HERE.
7. If your dryer makes a louder noise than normal when running, sometimes the plastic fan on the end of the motor shaft moves too close to the casework. Remove the cover, check this, and if it needs moving, it will be held either by an allen screw, or a spring compression clip. The front bearing pads could also have worn out.
8. If your drum fails to turn, and sits ther humming, it can be the motor start capacitor. Don’t leave it humming for long, as the cut-outs will operate, and you will get no heat. This is not easy to test unless you have specialist test equipment, but GK of Eastleigh provided this neat way of testing for a failed capacitor: “Open the door, place something in the latch mechanism that receives the door (so the machine thinks the door is closed) then turn the timer on and gently help the drum to start moving, it should then go round on its own if it does it should be the start capacitor. It is a largish cylindrical object with 2 or 4 spade terminals located on it, behind an access panel. Make a note (or digital camera picture) of what goes where, remove terminals, unscrew the capacitor, replace with new. Voila job done (mine was a White Knight 447 but judging by the fact that the chap said the capacitors only came in 2 & 4 terminal varieties, I’m guessing most machines are similar.”

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