Electric Dryer No Heat But Runs: The 240V Story

Last updated: October 2026 · DryVerdict

Here's the fact that explains this entire symptom: an electric dryer is really two appliances sharing a cabinet. The motor, timer, controls, and light run on 120 volts. The heating element — the part that makes heat — needs the full 240 volts. The 240V supply arrives as two separate 120V 'legs,' and if the dryer loses one of them, everything that runs on 120V keeps working perfectly while the element gets nothing at all. Tumbles forever, heats never.

Suspect #1: the half-tripped breaker

Electric dryers sit on a double-pole breaker — two breakers ganged together. One side can trip (or a breaker can fail internally) while the other stays on, and from the panel it can look almost normal, sitting in a vague middle position. The free test:

1. Find the dryer's double breaker.
2. Push it firmly to fully OFF — past the middle — then back to ON. Breakers reset from off, not from the middle.
3. Run a heated cycle and check the exhaust air after five minutes.

Heat back? Done, and it cost nothing. This one step is the most-skipped diagnosis in electric dryers, usually discovered after someone has already bought a heating element.

If the breaker is fine: the unplugged part tests, in order

1. Thermal fuse — continuity test. OL = blown. Remember it blows from overheating: check the vent, and if this is round two, read thermal fuse keeps blowing before replacing anything.
2. Heating element — about 10–30 ohms across the terminals is the healthy general band (many common elements read 10–15 ohms); OL = broken coil; any terminal-to-case reading = grounded element. Also look: a visible break or a coil sagging onto the housing settles it without a meter.
3. Hi-limit thermostat — continuity at room temperature, under 1 ohm. Open = no heat, full stop.
4. Cycling thermostat / timer / control — the tail of the tree, and the honest point to consider a tech if the first three test good.

Not your problem if…

…your dryer is gas. Gas dryers plug into a normal 120V outlet and heat with a burner; there is no second leg to lose. Their version of this symptom lives in the gas dryer no heat guide — including the starts-hot-then-goes-cold coil fault that mimics 'weak heat' complaints.

And if the dryer has heat but takes forever, your problem is airflow, not voltage: dryer takes too long to dry. The complete electric tree — every part value, the order, and the repair-vs-replace math at the end of it — is in the DryVerdict Kit.