Two households ask us this every week and the honest answer is a range rather than a number, because how long a machine lasts depends more on where it lives than on what it cost.
Numbers worth planning around
- Refrigerator, freestanding: 10 to 14 years.
- Refrigerator, built-in column: 15 to 20, and how you look after it decides where in that range you land.
- Freezer: 12 to 16.
- Washer: 9 to 12. Dryer: 11 to 14, decided almost entirely by the vent.
- Dishwasher: 9 to 12, less on hard water without a softener.
- Range and cooktop: 13 to 16. Wall oven: 13 to 16, repaired well past it for the reasons on our built-in kitchens article.
- Ice maker: 8 to 12. Wine cellar: 8 to 12, and where it sits decides which end.
The line, and both halves of it
Buy the new one when the repair passes half the price of comparable new equipment and the machine is already beyond two thirds of the life above. Both conditions together, never one on its own. A fourteen-year-old wall oven wanting a $180 part is worth fixing. A cheap washer at six years, needing a tub and bearing, is not worth your money.
What shortens these numbers around here
A second refrigerator in a garage that reaches 105 in July. A restricted dryer vent, which is also a fire risk and not only an efficiency one. A condenser left untouched since the day the kitchen was signed off. Wine units built into cabinetry with no clearance at the grille. Hard water on the northern edge of the valley scaling every heating element it touches.
Not one of those is inevitable, and heading each of them off costs a fraction of the repair it prevents.
What lengthens them
Very little that is complicated. Clean the condenser twice a year. Clear the dryer run every couple of years. Descale the dishwasher on a schedule rather than when it complains. Replace a door seal when it stops pulling in rather than when it fails. That is most of it.
Tell us what you own and you will hear the honest answer, up to and including the one that costs us the work. Call 866-264-9578.
