Home Page > Troubleshooting and Repair > Sears and Whirlpool Electric Dryer > Checking the Drum Baffles
Proper Operation
Learn how your appliance is supposed to operate so you can determine if it is malfunctioning.
This page contains affiliate links. For more information visit our
FTC disclosure page.
It is not necessary to feed coins into your dryer to operate it but occasionally they find their way into your machine anyway. They will clink, clank and slap along once per drum revolution. Sometimes you will find them on the bottom of the drum when you take the clothes out. Other times you can hear them clanking away but when you stop the dryer to remove the clothes and coins, they are nowhere to be seen! Thats because they are in the coin box - the drum baffle.
The drum baffle is the large plastic paddle inside the drum that lifts and tumbles your clothes. The baffle in a new dryer may fit tightly against the inside of the drum but a space soon forms that is wide enough for a dime, and later; quarters, pennies and nickels to slide through. Once they are in the hollow baffle, they don't slide back out. A hole slightly larger in diameter than a quarter has been strategically placed in the drum under the baffle to allow coins, jewelry, paper clips and other items flat enough to slide under the baffle to drop onto the floor of the dryer cabinet. Trajectories have to be just right for the objects to fall through the single hole and escape the baffle. Until they do escape, they will rattle and clack along for several weeks.
Home Page > Troubleshooting and Repair > Sears and Whirlpool Electric Dryer > Checking the Drum Baffles > How old is my Appliance?
All of the information in these Appliance Clinic procedures is provided FREE OF CHARGE. No liability is assumed by the author for the accuracy of the contents or damages caused by the use of these procedures.