30 Day and Dryer Disappointment

We had our 30 day walk-thru on Wednesday.  Our punch list was extremely small.  We asked our PM to fix tire tracks in the yard, fix a weird bubble in the master bedroom wall (from the drywall tape), fix a squeak in the hallway and fix one hardwood board that was cracked and missing stain.  Four things.  The 30 day list on my last home was 4 _pages_ long.

The most major problem we've had so far is out of our PM's control.  Our brand new Kenmore dryer hasn't been drying clothes properly and I've been walking around in clothes that smell like musty basement for a week.

A couple weeks ago, I noticed that clothes seemed a bit damp when I took them out of the dryer; I figured I was overloading it or hit the wrong setting, so didn't think much about it.  A few times, I re-started the dryer and let the clothes tumble a bit more.  But this week, I noticed that my clothes smelled MUSTY!  Like I'd pulled them out of a moldy basement.  So I paid more attention this weekend and found out that the dryer was not working at all.  It was getting hot, and steamy, but it wasn't drying clothes.

We called Kenmore to schedule a service appointment, but the lady on the phone wanted us to do a diagnosis over the phone.  Somehow, the machine can send a code over the phone.  So we did that, and we were told that the dryer wasn't venting properly.  Hello?  Really?  It was installed 30 days ago, it couldn't possibly have any kind of buildup in the vent.  But, we checked it out anyway.

This is where we learned the drawback of the upstairs laundry:  there is not a lot of room to move the machines around if you need to get behind them.

So, after some acrobatics on my part, I got my ass behind the dryer to check out the vent.  I was horrified at what I found.  The sears delivery people had completely botched the set up.   First, they didn't shorten the vent hose, so when they put it on and shoved the dryer back into place, all of that metal jammed up behind the dryer, basically cutting off the flow of air.  Second, I found the large zip ties that were supposed to be used to secure the hose INSIDE THE HOSE.  Can anyone say fire hazard?

I shortened the hose, and secured it properly to the machine and the wall.  Now the machine is working great, and I've done about 16 loads of musty laundry today.

Morale of this very long story - check your dryer install job!!  Make sure the hose has plenty of room for air flow, and that it is secured.  Don't trust that the delivery guy knows what he is doing, or cares about proper installation.  Second morale of this very long story - make sure your laundry room is big enough to move the machines around and get behind them for repairs and cleanouts.  The Ravenna laundry room definitely falls a bit short on this.