i bought a new whirlpool electric dryer & plug has 4 wires. My old outlet has 3 wires.what do i do? help!?

Question

I got the new dryer home (bought at an estate sale-"heavy -duty") & saw the plug was different & went to hardware store and bought the correct outlet to match the plug, but it has a place to hook up 4 wires, where my old plug only had 3 wires to breaker box. Does it need rewired to fit this? I can't afford electrician as hubby just passed away,I was hoping to be able to do myself- i can usually fix anything in my house. any answers would be appreciated, thanks, Lynne

Answer 1

CALL THE MANUFACTURER
or the store. There could be something that could be placed on it to match your pig-tail outlet.
Your sales person let you down. THEY should have ask you the plug you needed!
Do not take chances... Check the electrical part of the instructions or call the dealer/manufacturer but do not take chances

Answer 2

In many areas the elctrical codes call for the netral and ground to be bonded in the breaker panel. So your old dryer technically had ground and neutral as the same leg. Supposedly there should have been a ground wire run from the cold water pipe of the adjacent washing machine to the dryer case. (You would see a screw with a ring capture to secure this wire on the back of the old dryer should be in the vicinity of the electrical access panel. I just bought a new electric dryer from Maytag and it still had this extra ground capability. It still was only three wire.)

Today it is preferred to seperate these at the outlet, hence the four prong. Hopefully your old outlet was fed with a wire with three conductors and perhaps overwrapped with a ground wire? This may have just been connected to the base if floor mounted, or the wall box? If not, you should technically run a new ground of the appropriate guage.

Answer 3

The old dryer probably had control circuits that ran on 220 volts and didn't need a neutral (white) wire. The new one may need 110 volts for the controls ( a dedicated white (neutral) wire to the panel box.) Is there a data tag on the machine that lists voltages?
Check with the manufacture. They all have 800 numbers.If the present wiring is conduit it should be pretty easy to run a white(neutral)wire. If it is a 3 wire cable you may be able to use the existing ground wire for a neutral and add a number 10 (wire size)bare or green wire back to the breaker box as a new ground wire.

Answer 4

You may have a serious concern here. I think for your safety and to avoid a serious electrical problem, you need to ask for help from a licensed electrician -- cheaper than harming yourself or damaging you home. Why I say this is that you may have had a 120 volt dryer before and now you have one that needs 220 volts. This would require re-wiring for the new unit. But, be safe, ask an electrician.

Answer 5

The current electrical code requires the white wire ( neutral ) to be in the circuit. The dryer would run if the white and ground were connected to the ground terminal, but that wouldn't be the best way to do it.

Answer 6

This is not a do it yourself job.

A dryer is 220 Volts you should have a 4 wire plug, one for red (hot) one for black (Hot) one for white (neutral) one for Ground (green, or bare copper)

I find it hard to beleive your other dryer worked with 3 wires
Without a ground wire, it is dangerous, without a red and black, it shouldn't work, without a white it shouldn't work.

Please get an electrician.