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Can we talk about how I used to test dryer heating elements with a wet finger and now I use a $12 meter
Back when I started doing appliance calls in my dad's shop off Highway 6, I would lick my finger and tap the element terminals to feel for heat, and I got bit hard enough one time in 2019 that I threw my hand back into a customer's laundry basket. I bought a $12 multimeter off the tool truck after that and now I ohm out every element before I even pull the drum, which saved me a callback on a Kenmore last Tuesday. Does anybody else still keep a backup trick for the old units where the meter just isn't practical, or am I the last guy hanging onto the wet finger thing?
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miller.emery1mo ago
That 2019 shock into the laundry basket is exactly why I stopped trusting the finger test on anything still wired to a live breaker. What took it further for me was getting a cheap non-contact voltage tester, the pen kind, and keeping it in my shirt pocket next to the meter, because on old Whirlpool dryers the element terminals sit so close to the frame that you can read 240 across them even when the element itself is cracked. Once I started checking for voltage first and ohms second, I caught a grounded element on a 1998 Kenmore that would have read fine on the meter if I had just tested across the terminals alone. The wet finger thing never tells you which side is bad anyway, it just tells you something is hot, and half the time that heat is coming from a shorted wire instead of the element. So keep the old trick in your back pocket for the ancient stuff with no access panel, but pairing it with a voltage pen is what actually keeps you off the callbacks and out of the laundry basket.
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