Dryer Moisture Sensor not working What to do?

Troubleshooting Your Drying Machine’s “Moisture Sensor”.

In today’s dryers there are typically two versions of a dry moisture sensor, the old and the new. The older drying machines work off of a sensor panel (with two bars to be exact) typically found on the inside of your drying machine’s drum. 

The newer model dryers however will typically have its dryer sensors inside of the lint-collector at the bottom of the base collecting temperature changes and still making contact with your clothes.

In essence, a drying machines sensor works on a closed electrical circuit built by coming into contact with wet clothes. Overtime, as the dryer heats up, the frequency of electrical impulses generated back and forth between this circuit will decrease, ultimately, triggering the dryer to shut off as it indicates or believes that your clothes are now dry—or at least no longer wet or moist.

There are 3 key strategies to consider before calling in a professional repairmen and spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars on diagnosis and repairs.

1. Locate and clean the moisture sensor with a dry rag, brillo pad, or carefully using a low-grit sandpaper. Wash it down good, with regular soap, and get any unwanted grime and other buildup such as that from your dryer sheets off the sensors contact points.

2. This might seem obvious, but double-check to ensure your drying machine is on “Automatic” (Shutoff) 

3. Test your dryer’s sensor by intentionally placing soaked clothes inside the dryer to see how long it takes and when it stops to consider the clothes “dry”.

4. Lastly, the complete opposite of Step 3, put dry clothes inside of the dryer and see how many minutes, if any, it takes to sense and shut off because the clothing is already dry.