Home Improvement Today?

check if you have a gas line going to the dryer. you may be better off getting a gas dryer and not having such a heavy electrical load on the circuit.

I only suggest that because i found a gas line capped going to my stove and electric dryer area. its nice to have the option and my lights do flicker when using the stove

 

There are three outlets, two that are dedicated 20A service. I can plug either the washer or dryer into one of the others but it’s just strange that this is happening.

It’s a gas dryer. It was electric on 220V but I converted to gas when we bought the house. Only $1k to have the new line run…

 

Strange, your dryer should only be pulling 4-5 amps Do you think an electrical motor in either is going bad? or your breaker is going bad but you can replace that without an electrician

 

I’m really not sure. Both the washer and dryer are new so it’s possible but unlikely only 7 or 8 months into their lives. Replacing the breaker is cheap and easy. I may try that. Could it be an issue with wiring at all?

 

i do know that ours is a 30 amp circuit powering both. Your wiring could accommodate a bigger breaker if thats what it calls for. cant imagine newer appliances pulling more amps.

 

Get an ammeter on it if you can. Also is it tripping the breaker when you start them both at the same time or after they are running for a few minutes? Just because your washer dryer are new doesn’t mean they can’t be over drawing amps because of a bad motor or otherwise.

 

How old is house?

 

Did we get resolution on this was your disposal pipe sloped the wrong and creating a smelly situation?

 

Bigger breaker is probably not a solution.

I have a good multimeter. What should I check?

2019 new cons. We are the second owners.

 

You probably have a plugged filter or a dirty indoor coil

 

I would turn the system off of cooling till you can figure it out. Flood back like that can cause damage to your compressor

 

new washer have the water heating option?

 

You want to check current draw (amperes). Sort of difficult with a multimeter because the probes would have to be in series with the plug. A proper ammeter has a loop that goes around the wiring to check current without having to disconnect anything. You may have seen them used to check output of a vehicle alternator. Checking the current of each machine will tell you if they're operating at normal draw or if they're sucking more power than they should be.

 

It has steam, so I assume so. According to the specs online, it's rated at 120V, 10A. Now that I look at it, the dryer is rated at 120V, 15A. We may have identified the problem...Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Yup I know what you mean. I don't have one but it's a useful tool to have so I might look into getting one. I may have identified the problem, though. Washer is rated at 10A and dryer is rated at 15A. I'm no math wiz, but it looks like I need to use the second 20A outlet that we have in the laundry room for the dryer. It's really surprising to me that a gas dryer would take so much power, but it's got to be better than an electric dryer.

 

Even if they're both rated at 10 amps, that's too much for a 20 amp receptacle. When I worked for an electrical engineer, we ran at 80% capacity for calculations. Plug either one of them in to the second receptacle and never worry about it again.

 

What's the going rate these days to add a 20 amp breaker and run about 20-30ft of romex to a new outlet? It's pretty much a straight shot over the top of the garage attic and down the other wall.

I want to install a wall mounted electric pressure washer, but I've been getting quotes from $1000-$1500. I was guessing $300 in parts plus labor.

 

Seems as though other houses in this neighborhood (high end) have experienced similar issues. One was a $30K repair bill. Original builder did something terribly wrong.

 

It's the startup amps. I measured our gas dryer and washer previously and when the different components start up you'll hit the higher range and then the amp draw comes down to pretty low. Think the dryer was in the 3-4amp range once it was running.

$1000 does seem high but going to depend on your area too. It's also a small job and with how busy companies are, they are probably up charging a bit

 

We've been putting out insanely high bids on small jobs because we don't have time for them with the amount of homes we need to frame this summer. Yet, people are willing to pay it and sign the contract. It's crazy right now.

 

Yeah I'm not surprised. For bigger companies it's just hard to justify small jobs. A homeowner thinks it's only a two hour job but for the company it's really 2 hours at the house but then say two hours in travel and prep time too.

There's a guy in my town that got pissed at his boss and started his own company. Just him and doing all those small jobs. I talked to him for a bit and he said he was making more than working for the big company even after insurance and crap. But he also just had a cargo trailer for his tools and no real overhead