Do-It-Yourself Story

I have a Whirlpool Duet Dryer. The breaker would pop at least once a cycle and it also started to stay hot all the time, even on the 'air only' cycle. After researching blog postings, I opted to tackle the heating element, fuse and thermostat first. The element was broken in a few places (from heating cycles over the past 10 years), so I replaced it and the other parts. Unfortunately, the dryer still heated on 'air only' after this repair. So again, based on blog postings, I next changed the thermistor and thermal fuse on the blower housing. Yep, you guesed it, it still blew hot all the time, so additional blog research led me to the control board. The broken, shorted out heating element had more than likely damaged the heating relay on the control board. I replaced the board and sure enough, it works perfectly. Since I was in there anyway, I vacumned everything out and also put in new rollers and a new belt. Other than the motor, blower and housing, this dryer should last another 10 years. Side note: a new Duet is $999 at the big box stores, about $650 on sale, and I spent a little over $400 in parts to rebuild the dryer.