Heat Pump dryer is not collecting water and taking a long time to finish the cycle

[RoxanaTutu]

Hello there,

I have a heat pump dryer, model DV90TA040AX/LE. It worked well for about one year. For the last 3/4 cycles I noticed that the same drying cycle for the same amount of clothes is taking much longer to finish and the water in the tank wasn't as much as usual. This last cycle there was NO water in the tank.

We clean the lint filter after each use. We cleaned the heat exchanger once when the dryer prompted us to do it and we empty the water tank after each use.

Now, although the clothes are dry after many hours, there is some residual humidity left also on the clothes but...also on the inside of the dryer. On the seal of the door for example. There's also more lint on the clothes and on the door seal.

I don't know if some other info is useful....

Is there anyone around here who faced the same problem? Does anyone have a possible solution or something else to try?

[Atilondon]

Before you check anything,unplug the appliance from the wall socket!First issue can be the drain pump can't lift up the water to the drawer,can be fluffs blockage at the back ,on the right side in the bottom,2 screws holding the flap,open it and check there.I assume you cleaning the door filter BEFORE every cycle.The other thing in the front where is the condenser unit ,there are vertical very delicate aluminium fins,they have to be straight,if covered by fluffs ,very gently brush it up and down ONLY!If you think that all these things looks ok,and you had a right maintenance as always as you used to do it,then start a 30mins Time dry cycle(Warm air) and put a temperature tester probe inside.Should to be afyer 4-5mins every runing minute raising temperature 1 Celsius degree.If not growing ,probably the base is gone(heatpump and high and low pressure condenser unit-together,probably gas escaped)

[RoxanaTutu]

Hello everyone, so....just wanted to let everyone know, in case you stumble on my original post, that in our case, it was apparently a case of user error.

After showing my husband the other reply, where the vertical delicate aluminum fins are mentioned, my husband realized he hadn't actually noticed these the previous time he had looked.

Apparently there was A LOT of fluff clogging up that condenser unit, but it was very..... dense....he had mistaken it for a kind of textile filter. When he took it off, it wasn't the consistency of the fluff from the lint filter. It wasn't actually fluffy any more, it looked like....felt. it definitely wasn't letting any air pass through...

Now....this definitely IS user error. But...there are 2 questions I'm left with:

1. I still don't understand why the dryer didn't show the error indicating that the filter has to be cleaned. It did show that error on another occasion, and you really couldn't use the appliance....it wouldn't go away, until he did clean the filter. But now....the error wasn't there.

2. How come the fluff got so compacted? Is there maybe still some underlying problem that caused that? It seems to me that MAYBE there was to much humidity there, on the outside of the filter? But maybe that's normal, because, after all....the purpose of the component is to turn humid air into water? Maybe that's not it at all.....just the force of air adding more and more fluff? We just used the dryer one time after cleaning the condenser filter, the program lasted as expected, the clothes were dry and there was water in the water container. But...is this it, for certain? Or will this happen again in a short time?