Although I’m handy with tools, like most people I tend to leave repairs of major appliances to the experts. But what I discovered in the last couple of years is that what makes an "expert" is knowledge and experience.

Experience takes time; knowledge can be gained in minutes by using the Internet. This was demonstrated recently when my family moved to Florida and discovered that our electric dryer, which had been in storage for three years, refused to generate any heat. So I fired up the computer and got on the ‘Net.

My first step was to "Ask Jeeves." No, I don’t have a butler (at least not yet); Jeeves (www.askjeeves.com) is a plain language search engine. Just type in your question and "Jeeves" searches the major portals using keywords from your question.

Typing in "dryer won’t heat," Jeeves gave me a nice list of hits that may give me the information I need. Bingo! Jeeves searched AltaVista and found a newsgroup topic "No heat in electric dryer." Newsgroups are places on the where ordinary people ask questions or give answers to questions. Newsgroups are like chat rooms except it’s not real-time, more like a bulletin board.

In this case someone suggested checking the dryer’s voltages, i.e,. is the dryer getting power to the heating coil? All well and good, makes sense...but how do I do that? I needed to find more in depth information, like an on-line repair manual. So back to Jeeves, this time I tried "appliance repair."

Jeeves gave me a nice list of websites relating to "appliance repair". But I still had to wade through quite a few websites put up by local repair businesses that don’t really offer anything useful.

But then Jeeves recommends a list of appliance repair links compiled by about.com so I surf over there to check out their list. Sure enough, one of their links is to the Appliance Clinic (www.c-com.net/~draplinc), an excellent site with a troubleshooting and repair section. I have a belt-driven electric dryer so I click the link under belt-driven dryers.

The Appliance Clinic walks you through the proper operation of the appliance, then presents a list of problem diagnostics. Top of the list is "will not heat" which tells me my problem could be one of three things: the power outlet, thermostat or heater element.

Each of these items is a link to step by step troubleshooting procedures, each with clear diagrams and photos to help you locate where each part is located and how to take voltage measurements. The Clinic also tells you what tools you’ll need for identifying the problem, and the part numbers of replacements!

Using these easy to follow directions, I discovered my problem was the dryer wasn’t getting the correct power to the heating element. Using my multi-meter, I tracked it down to a defective circuit breaker -- cost: $13.00. My dryer was as good as new...for about a week!

Soon the dryer began to make a horrible screeching noise and the drum wouldn’t turn, but I least I still had heat! A quick trip back to the Appliance Clinic and a look under the "dryer makes unusual sounds" topic tells me to look at the "idler pulley" and shows a diagram of where it is.

Using that as a guide, I pull off the back of the dryer and I find that the idler pulley assembly had broken. Calling a local appliance repair shop with the model number of my dryer and I had a new pulley the next day --cost: $26.00. At a total cost of $39.00, and an hour on the Internet, my 12-year-old dryer is now working like a charm. I don’t know what the going labor rate is on an "expert" appliance repairman, but as long as I have access to the Internet and the wealth of information it makes available, I’ll be my own "expert" and keep my money.