We needed to stack our washer and dryer because of laundry-room space, and stacking kits aren’t universal — so once we picked the washer, we were locked into the matching Electrolux dryer. That’s how I ended up with the Electrolux Front Load Perfect Steam Gas Dryer with Instant Refresh, model ELFG7437AW. A name longer than most of its useful features.
Same complaint I had about the fridge and the washer applies here: appliances are built to last about five years now, maybe seven if you’re lucky, and the cost to repair is engineered to come close enough to the cost of replacement that you “decide” to replace. Our old LG dryer ran for thirteen years. I’d be shocked if this Electrolux makes it half that.
I generally prefer the simplest appliance possible — fewer features, fewer things to break. But to match the washer I had to step up a tier, so now I own a steam feature I will never use. The steam line is disconnected and will stay that way.
The Controls
Same oversensitive touch buttons as the washer. Too gentle and nothing happens; too firm and you’ve start-paused yourself mid-cycle. The blue-on-white calculator display is retro, but not the good kind.
Reversing the Door
The door was installed on the wrong side for our setup. No big deal, you’d think. Wrong.
The screws are square-head (Quadrex), which looks just close enough to a #2 Phillips that you’ll strip a few before you figure out what’s happening. Then you’ll find that the screw holes aren’t pre-threaded — even though the screws are fine-thread machine screws. With points. They don’t self-tap properly, so I ended up using an M5x0.8 tap to actually cut threads. And when I stripped a couple in the process, the local hardware store didn’t have them. Neither did the big-box stores. My local appliance store dug into their shop to find replacements, which is the only reason we didn’t end up with a doorless dryer.
LP Conversion
We’re on propane, so the dryer needed the LP conversion kit. The appliance store installed it, but right out of the gate the flame would fire briefly and shut down. They were responsive — multiple visits, adjusted the orifice, eventually replaced the thermostat and gas valve, which cleared a noise problem. The drying performance never fully came right.
The Factory Service Call
Still struggling with long drying times, I called Electrolux directly and they sent out a factory tech. The visit was instructive, but not in the way I’d hoped. When I compared our drying times to our twelve-year-old LG, he told me:
“You can’t compare different brands, they use different technology.” (The laws of thermodynamics, apparently, are brand-specific.)
“Newer dryers are designed to run longer because that saves energy.” (Running a gas appliance longer saves energy in what universe.)
“If it gets warm, it’s working as intended.” (That is a remarkably low bar for a dryer.)
He also couldn’t address the LP conversion side of things, even if that was the source of the issue.
The one useful thing he told me: the timed dry setting bypasses the moisture sensors, which probably explains why our old LG’s timed dry worked better than this machine’s auto-sensing.
The Drying Time Experiment (and the One Setting That Works)
My wife, bless her, made a chart and methodically tested every setting until she found something workable. The early results: loads that dried in 50 minutes on medium heat in our old LG now need at least 60 minutes on high in the Electrolux, and often need more after that.
The minimum time you can add when a cycle ends short is 30 minutes. There’s no in-between.
The bigger discovery, after months of trial and error: there is exactly one setting on this dryer that actually dries clothes. It’s Normal with Dry Boost. That’s it. Not Heavy Duty. Not Towels. Not any of the auto-sensing cycles. Just Normal with Dry Boost.
If you own this dryer and you’re wondering why your clothes come out damp, that’s why. Burn this into your memory and ignore the rest of the panel.
Design Flaws
Beyond the drying performance, the machine has a stack of design problems:
- Like the washer, the drum pushes clothes forward, so they fall out when you open the door.
- Dryer sheets end up stuck to the lint trap instead of doing their job.
- The lint trap is double-sided and needs two hands to clean — usually pressed against my shirt, which means I wear about as much lint as I empty.
- The door gasket is larger than the door opening, which creates a lint and debris trap around the edge that’s impossible to actually clean.
- Per online reviews, the lint trap sometimes dislodges entirely and gets pulled into the drum, which can damage clothes and clog the exhaust.
It was quieter than the LG at first. That didn’t last. As lint built up on the vent fan, the noise crept back in, and now it’s louder than the LG ever was. The poor lint trap design feeds the noise problem directly — same arc as the washer, where the one thing it was supposed to do better than its predecessor is now the thing it does worse.
The LG It Replaced
For contrast: our 2010 LG Gas SteamDryer (model DLGX2502W) was a workhorse for thirteen years. Tactile knob, real buttons with real feedback, and 50 minutes on medium heat dried most loads. The lint filter wasn’t perfect, but the machine understood that its job was to dry clothes — every setting on it actually worked.
The Verdict
If your current dryer works, hold onto it. If you’re shopping, don’t assume newer means better. And if you already own this Electrolux: Normal with Dry Boost. That’s the setting. You’re welcome.
A sincere thank-you to our local appliance store, who were responsive and helpful through all of this. The flaws in this particular model aren’t on them, and I’d happily shop with them again. Sometimes even good retailers are stuck working with what the manufacturer ships.
I started writing this post annoyed. I’m ending it convinced that the appliance industry has quietly decided that “working as intended” is whatever bar the manufacturer feels like setting. Five years from now I’ll probably be writing the same post about a different brand. Make sure to subscribe.
Even that's Odd 
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