Hi,

I'm not an expert at this stuff at all, but I like to try to fix stuff on my own so I'm hoping someone can help me. If I get too far in over my head I'll just call a tech into my home.

My dryer has not been drying well for a week or so now - something definitely wrong with it. Its about 8 years old now and has been rock solid until now.

I took the front cover off of my dryer so I could fully see the gas assembly and such. When I close the door switch and start the dryer, in about 3 or 4 seconds I can hear a "click" of some kind and then this metal bar starts to glow bright red. within 3 or 4 seconds the gas ignites and good heat is pumped out.

What I've noticed however is that more often than not, the metal bar glows but the gas doesn't ignite and then the metal bar "cools off" -- no heat. This can happen several times within a minute.

I've also observed a few cases where I smell gas fairly strongly when turning off the dryer - though I haven't yet observed that case with the front cover off so I'm not sure what happened there. The smell dissipates pretty quickly after turning off the dryer.

My inexperienced guess would be the gas solenoids are getting weak and almost shot.

Am I close?

Thanks,
Dan