Had a chat with a guy who rewired his own dryer... twice

I was trimming a poodle last Thursday and this customer's husband started telling me how he fixed his dryer himself after watching a Youtube video. He said he used a paperclip as a fuse replacement and it "worked great" for about 3 weeks before the whole thing caught fire. Anyone else ever get customers asking if their DIY jobs are safe to keep using?

3 comments

3 Comments

avery_lopez28d ago

Figured I'd ask - is a paperclip really that much worse than the actual fuse? Like, they're both just metal conducting electricity, right? I mean I get that fuses are designed to blow at a certain point but it's not like your dryer is running at max amp all the time. Sounds dramatic to call it a fire hazard when it's probably just going to trip the breaker eventually anyway.

murphy.linda27d ago

Oh sure, it's just metal conducting electricity, until the wire in your wall turns into a space heater because the paperclip didn't pop when it should have. I've seen the aftermath of a penny in a fuse box, and let me tell you, the "dramatic fire hazard" label starts looking pretty accurate when you're staring at a melted outlet and a wall that's been smoking for days. Your breaker might trip eventually, but "eventually" is a lot slower than the 10 seconds it takes for that paperclip to turn your dryer cord into a toaster element.

daniel_walker27d ago

Swapped a blown fuse with a paperclip once as a teenager just to get the dryer running for one more load. Came back 20 minutes later to a melted plug and the smell of burning plastic, never again.