One of the terminals was left loose, over the years it did serious damage until it finally melted through the wire completely….fortunately the entire dryer didn’t ignite and cause a house fire. When electrical connections are loose electrical arcing starts to occur. This is like a mini lighting strikes that occur over and over again building up carbon deposits each time. Carbon does not conduct electricity and creates more resistance, so over time this starts to create heat. Sometimes it can takes decades, other times years and in other cases maybe just a few months before the carbon and heat build up to the point where there is so much heat the wire melts or a fire starts.
We performed a service call and got the new dryer hooked up with no problems. This time we were very careful to properly tighten all connections.