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ELECTRICAL QUESTION: Changing the Plug on a dryer

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imported_Pablo

Diamond Member
I am installing a dryer that used to be at my sisters house in my new apartment. It had a plug on it that looked like this:

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Three prongs.

The outlet that is in my apartment is 4 prongs, and it looks like this:

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Just to be stupid, I tried to wire in a new plug (a 4 prong plug) directly in place.

It works, but it seems to be running a little hard and a little hot (too much heat on "low" setting), almost like my dryer is 110v and the wall is 220v. Anybody got any advice, or a website that I can look this up on?

Thanks in advance,

Paul
 
ones 220 and ones 220 with a ground I believe iirc my guess if you ran a 110 appliance at 220, it would do more than run a little hot.... I did run(try to) m 110v ac at 220v wasn't working right and than I looked behind the outlet and found that the guy I bought the house up had the red wire on the ground the whit on a hot and a black on hot. and the bare ground wire just stuffed into the box. Now I'm in the process of checking all the other electrical work he did😛
 
All electric dryers are 220V with that type of plug.
Most residential homes have two phase current, you have two hot wires coming into your home, then there is the return (Ground).

Hook up any one of those two wires and the ground, you get 120V, hook up those two wires plus the ground, you get 220V.

Most likely you hooked up the two hot wires in the wrong sequence (The dryer is seeing voltage on the wrong terminal inside the switch that controls the heat)
 
Thanks for the replies



The wires from the PLUG are Red Black White and of course green.

The wires on the DRYER terminal strip are Red yellow and white. There is a ground wire NOT wired to the terminal strip, but attached to the metal back cover of the dryer.

I attached Red to Red, White to White, Black to YELLOW, and the ground from the plugin cord to a screw on the back metal panel...

Any clue which one I may have switched?

 
Four terminals usually signifies three phase 480.

The 220 dryer is probably running on one leg of 480. Take a volt meter and check your voltages.
 
This is just an apartment, and I don't think they would be running 3 phase power to a dryer outlet. Never know though. I figured its just typical 2 110v legs or whatver they normally do... I'll check the voltages though, just to make sure...
 
The reason you have a four plong in your new place is because national electric code outlawed installation of three prong type in new installations.

The four prong type have two lines, power neutral and equipment ground.

The three prong type hvae two lines and power neutral. The power neutral is shared as equipment ground.

This is what you probably had at your old place:
http://www.leviton.com/images/techsupp/1030p.jpg

This is the new one:
http://www.leviton.com/images/techsupp/1430p.jpg

Remove the three prong cord from your dryer, then install it so that lettering match up. Don't connect the lead coming off of the "G" pin.

 
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