Most big appliances live 10 to 15 years. That is the short answer, and it covers the fridge, the washing machine and most of the other machines a house depends on. The table below is the honest average for each appliance, drawn from manufacturer expectations and industry figures — not the best case a salesman quotes and not the worst case a repair bill suggests. Treat every number as a range with your own home attached to it: how an appliance is used and maintained moves its life years in either direction, and a lightly used, well-kept machine regularly outlives a neglected one by half a decade.
Appliance lifespans at a glance
| Appliance | Typical lifespan (years) |
|---|---|
| Refrigerator | 12–15 |
| Washing machine | 10–13 |
| Tumble dryer | 13 |
| Dishwasher | 9–13 |
| Oven and hob / range | 15 |
| Microwave | 9 |
| Freezer | 15–20 |
| Water heater (tank) | 8–12 |
| Water heater (tankless) | 20 |
| Central air conditioning | 15–20 |
| Furnace | 15–25 |
Read the ranges as “somewhere in here, for most households”, not as expiry dates. A refrigerator at year 13 is not living on borrowed time; it is in the middle of its expected life. What the table is really for is calibration. If a repair quote lands on a machine that is already past the top of its range, the maths of that repair changes completely — you are no longer buying years of service, you are renting months. If the machine is in the first half of its range, the same quote looks very different. The numbers also explain why two neighbours get such different lives from the same model: usage, water quality, ventilation and basic maintenance routinely matter more than the badge on the door.
Near the end of life
Appliances rarely die in one dramatic moment. They fade, and the fade has a pattern worth recognising before you are standing in a flooded kitchen at midnight. The first sign is frequency: repairs that used to be a once-a-decade event start arriving every year or two, and each fix reveals the next weak part. The second sign is parts. Manufacturers support models for a finite window, and when the control board or the specific pump your machine needs goes obsolete, a repair that should exist simply does not — you are offered a refurbished part, a long wait, or nothing. The third sign is performance drift: the fridge runs longer to hold its temperature, the washer takes two cycles to clean what one used to, the oven heats unevenly.
Underneath all three signs sits the same problem: efficiency. An appliance near the end of its life has usually fallen well behind a new model in running costs — seals leak cold air, motors work harder, and heating elements scale up. A fifteen-year-old fridge can cost strikingly more per year to run than its modern replacement, which is why the decision is not repair price versus replacement price alone. If you want to see what your old fridge is really costing you, the Fridge Running Cost Calculator turns its age and rating into a yearly figure you can set against a new model’s.
The 50% rule: when repair stops paying
Knowing the lifespan is only half the job — the other half is knowing what to do with a quote in your hand. The rule that cuts through the emotion is the 50% rule: if a repair costs more than half the price of a comparable new appliance, AND the appliance is past half its expected life, replacement usually wins. Both halves matter. A $400 repair on a $700 washing machine sounds indefensible until you learn the machine is three years old with a decade left in it — then it is a bargain. The same $400 on a ten-year-old machine is money poured into an appliance that the table says is nearly done. The Repair vs Replace Calculator runs this exact test with your own numbers, including the appliance’s age and breakdown history.
Work through it once with real figures and the pattern sticks. Say the quote is $450 to repair a nine-year-old dishwasher, and a comparable new one costs $800. The repair is more than half the replacement price, and at nine years the machine is at the bottom of its 9–13 year range and past halfway through it — both tests fail, so replacement wins, and the $450 goes towards the new machine instead. Now change one fact: the same quote on a four-year-old dishwasher. It is well inside the first half of its expected life, so repairing buys back most of a decade of service. When you are unsure which side of the line your own appliance sits on, run the Repair vs Replace Calculator before you commit to either bill.
The table above covers the appliances this question gets asked about most, but it is not everything a house runs on. For boilers, heat pumps, extractor hoods and the rest, the Appliance Lifespan Chart is the full chart, including heating and cooling systems, in one place.
Frequently asked questions
What appliance has the shortest lifespan?
Dishwashers and microwaves — around 9–13 years for a dishwasher and about 9 years for a microwave, the shortest of the major appliances. Both live in hot, wet, steamy conditions that punish seals, pumps and electronics.
Which appliance lasts the longest?
Tankless water heaters and furnaces, at up to 20–25 years. With no tank of standing water to corrode and an annual service, they outlast everything else in the house.
Does maintenance extend appliance life?
Yes. Cleaning refrigerator coils, clearing filters and wiping door seals is the cheapest life-extender there is — machines that breathe freely and seal properly do not work as hard, and it is the hard work that wears them out.
When should I replace instead of repair?
Apply the 50% rule: if the repair costs more than half the price of a comparable new appliance and yours is past half its expected life, replacement usually wins. Failing only one of the two tests usually means the repair is worth it.
Averages only — brands, use and water quality move any single appliance’s life a lot.