Miele washer dryer WT2780 top cover getting v hot on drying cycle

[jayj]

Have to confess that this might be one of those 'always been happening but only just noticed it' things. Having said that the cover is getting very hot - not comfortable to put hand on it - which I would have thought should not be the case from a kiddie safety point of view.

Had had a Miele service guy out recently (to fix a loose internal dryer hose left by the previous Miele engineer) - so wondered if some other hose with hot air had come loose and was causing it.

Opened up the top cover and turned on the drying cycle (avoiding touching any of the exposed electrics naturally). There is a beefy looking big rectangular silver metal box running font to back with 'Miele' in big letter on it which from memory is the heating element to heat the air. Gingerly touching the top of this with a finger I noted that this was very hot indeed.

So a bit of a dilemma - is the hot box normal or could it be that the fan is not working properly and so not passing cold air over the element within and so allowing the element to heat up more than usual? In which case I'd get a Miele service person out.

In an idea world another WT2780 user would rush to their machine and put on a cotton dry - then let me know if the top cover gets uncomfortably hot... ;o)

 

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

Hi Jayj. Yes it's totally normal for that aluminium casing to get extremely hot. The heating element is just below it. If the temperature gets too hot, there should be at least 2 separate devices that should cut power to the heater. There should be a thermostat that would cut power if the temperature got too high, and then there should be a secondary thermal overload cutout device that should cut power to the heater should the thermostat fail.

All this was implemented about 30 years ago when a candy washer dryer, that did not have a secondary TOC overheated, caught fire, and killed a woman.

Does the dryer dry laundry properly, like it always used to? If so, then the implication is that there is nothing wrong. If the dryer fan was not running, you would be able to see that it is not running. But of course a fan could be running, but hindered by a blockage somewhere in the system.

In such a case though, you would expect the washing machine to detect an error and abort the cycle. At the very least, the temperature controls should stop it from getting too hot. The secondary TOC is often a one-shot device. So if temperature does rise to danger levels, it should stop heating altogether.

But obviously when it comes to safety I couldn't possibly say that there is nothing wrong, and it is safe. You would have to use your own judgement on that and possibly calling an engineer.

 

[jayj]

Hi Andy - thanks for the detailed reply

Interesting about the Candy incident. I'll do a trial run to see if the Miele dries a cotton load in a 'normal' time period.

I'm not entirely convinced about Miele (or the WT2780) and their use of sensors - this after all is the machine which cheerfully ran a 'drying load' with a tripped heater (i.e. 0 degrees C heat coming out) and not a dickie bird on the panel to indicate that the heater was not working.

Ditto the service engineer announced that ther was a lot of 'over-sudsing' indicated by his diagnostic machine - when I asked why in that case this was not announced on the panel (so as to ensure the user reduced their powder consumption) he had no answer.

I would like to keep this machine running for as long as possible - the interior is very clean and I've religiously used all the various Miele drum cleaning and anti-calc products - so I guess only the bearings and belts might need changing at some point.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

You make some excellent points there, Jayj. I would expect much better from Miele.