Sense identified a device it calls “Heat 2”. I think it might be our gas dryer but I’m not positive. The dryer is a gas dryer, not electric so I’m surprised it gets these short spikes. See the screen shot below. It only stays on in Sense about 12 seconds and use 473W. Then it shuts off but the dryer is still running. Does this make sense? Anyone else see a gas dryer work like this?
It’s probably The igniter for the flame on your dryer. I would name it something different than “dryer”. Maybe “dryer ignition” so it doesn’t appear as a dryer cycle is only 12s long. Hopefully sense will find the drum motor and that will give you a more accurate look at you dryers cycles and use.
If you want to test then turn the gas off to your dryer and try to run a cycle. With the gas turned off it will likely try and ignite a few times before giving up. I’m assuming you only see his a single time for each cycle as it is lighting the first time, each time.
It could be the electrical ignition of the flame.
I don’t have a gas dryer any more, but most of them use an electric igniter rather than a pilot light. Based on your description, I’d guess that.
Thanks for the thoughts. I’m am seeing it turn on and off many times during a single dryer load. Not just one time.
That can happen when the dryer is trying to maintain a certain temperature. Instead of burning the flame at a percentage it will either be on or off and cycle many times.
That makes sense. Thanks. Having Sense installed has been very insightful.
Having just the timeline has been very insightful for us. Wait until you have a bunch of good detections. I’ve had about 40 in a little over 2 months. While sense has removed some and I have deleted at least a dozen, it’s still amazing.
Can’t say I’ve saved any real money just yet but I see where we could if we actually put a little effort into it.
That’s as it should be. Dryers turn the burners, whether electric or gas, on and off during the drying cycle to maintain set temperature ranges,
Most dryers use a resistive hot surface igniter instead of an electric spark igniter, so your Sense detection sounds right. Here’s a video that shows one in action:
Your dryer may have a sight plug that you could remove. This would allow you to watch the igniter when you get a notification that the device has turned on.
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