How Often Should You Replace Major Appliances?

 

Every year, thousands of households invest thousands of dollars on high quality home appliances. While these appliances play a key role in their homes such as making work easier, sooner or later they become inefficient and ineffective. It’s at this point that one has to answer that simple question, should I have them repaired, or should they be replaced?

Since no appliance is designed to last forever, it's important to be knowledgeable about the appliance's lifespan. Failure to do so may lead you to unexpectedly find that the fridge no long works, or that the boiler has gone cold. But since one appliance's lifespan varies from the other, it's wise that you keep a log of each one of them so as to prevent incidences of your family's life being inconvenienced.

 In essence, it's hard to give an exact date of when your appliance will become ineffective. And although some major publications such as Appliance Magazine publishes an annual report showing how long people keep their household appliances, it's worth noting that in most cases, families choose to replace their appliances when they are remodeling rather than when the appliance's lifespan is about to be exceeded.

 How then can one know that it's time to replace their appliance?

 The most reliable way of doing so is by making an approximation or in other words, calculating the appliance's average lifespan. Usually, this is highly determined by the appliance's durability, manufacturing quality, frequency of use, levels of maintenance, the weather, and  how well or how poorly they have been installed.

While a central air conditioning system is designed to last for 15 to 20 years, if you live within the coastal areas, it can end up lasting far less than a decade. In terms of durability and frequency of use, a window air conditioner is more likely to become inefficient a whole lot faster than a freezer. That aside, here's a breakdown on the average number of years some of the major household appliances are likely to last:

Since window air conditioners, washing machines and microwaves are among the most used within the house, they tend to have a lifespan of less than 10 years. To be specific, their approximated lifespan is 5-7, 5-15, and 9 years respectively.

Refrigerators are likely to last for 9-13 years, gas ovens 10-18 years, freezers 10-18 years, kitchen disposals 12 years, dryers 13 years, boilers 13-21 years, and wall ovens 15 years or more.

It’s always important to keep track of your appliance's age. Alternatively, you can pay close attention to the performance of the appliance. Small issues like emitting funny noises and/or frequent malfunctions should be taken as warning signs that the appliance should be replaced.