Gas Dryers

jcheil

I was looking to buy a gas (propane) dryer for my off-grid place and got to thinking.

I spent a lot of time and research buying the gas stove that I just had delivered making sure that it did not have one of those glow bars in the oven and I was wondering if anyone knew if gas dryers had the same design?

And if so, does anyone know of any brands/models that do NOT have the glow bars?

Thanks again for your continued help and suggestions.

Jay

BB.

Re: Gas Dryers

From a quick look around the web--Non-glow bar dryers went (for the most part) extinct by the early 1970's...

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?40744

The earliest gas dryers with electric ignition [ these started being produced in the 1940s ] used a small platinum glow coil that ran on 2 1/2 volts. This glow coil would light a pilot that would stay on any time that the dryer was running and a main burner valve coil was cycled when drying heat was called for. This style ignition was used by almost all dryer manufacturers that were building gas dryers in the 1950s and gradually went out of production in the 1960s. Makers that used this system included Apex, Bendix, Blackstone, Maytag [ all their gas dryers before HOH and none there after ] Hamilton, Philco, Whirlpool, Kenmore,and I am sure I missed a couple. You will notice that GE, Westinghouse and Frigidaire are missing as these three didn't make gas dryers at all till the 1960s and therefore none ever used this early style ignition system. The Kenmore Gas Combos continued to use this expensive to build ignition system till the end of KM combos in the fall of 1971. They did this because if the machine was badly oversudsed and because the gas burner was in the base of the machine the ignitor area could get wet. The low voltage ignitor coil would not be hurt by water unlike the direct spark ignition or later glow bar ignitor that both have exposed parts that are electrically live with 120 volts. Tom you are absolutely correct as this early style ignition could be easily affected by low voltage if the ignitor was old and weak and we did have this problem on my 1965 LKM gas combo when it would try to light when I was running three or four washers on the same 20 AMP circuit at the same time.

What little I have seen, the modern glow bar on a cloths dryer only turns on for ~15 seconds to light the flame (~400 watts or so), then turns off until the next "flame on" cycle.

I measured the power usage by my washer and dryer, and both use about 0.250 kWH per load--So, the glow bar does not seem to be an excessive load and does not appear to be worth worrying about.

Otherwise, you are looking for 40+ year old drier for a non-glow bar ignition system (spark, pilot light, etc.).

-Bill

jcheil

Re: Gas Dryers

BB. wrote: »

What little I have seen, the modern glow bar on a cloths dryer only turns on for ~15 seconds to light the flame (~400 watts or so), then turns off until the next "flame on" cycle.
-Bill

That was what I was hoping for.
Thanks so much.