When it comes to deciding between repairing your old appliance and buying a new one – the question of “is repairing old appliances worth it?” definitely comes to mind. And to help settle the debate – today we’ll weigh in on the matter with our professional expertise spanning several decades of appliance maintenance and repair services in Chilliwack.

What’s Considered Old For An Appliance?

First and foremost, let’s take a peek at the general age brackets for your household appliances. This should help you decide whether or not your appliance is starting to reach the point of retirement, or if it’s still got a few years of life to give.

Laundry Appliance Life Span

When it comes to laundry appliances like washing machines (washers) and dryers – there are a few things that can affect the general age range. For one, you’ve got the build quality. It’s no secret that different manufacturers will put different levels of care into the appliances they produce. For example: Samsung and LG generally tend to have better overall build quality than Whirlpool, but are known to have several unique issues, on the other hand.

Appliance	Manufacturer Rating	Typical Lifespan Until Major Repairs
Washing Machines	10-15 years	10 years
Clothes Dryers	10-15 years	20 years

Usually, laundry appliances are rated lower than their actual life span, and once major repairs are done, they can easily last another 10-15 years without experiencing major problems. The factors that will determine this are generally how they’re used, and how well they’re looked after across that time span.

Kitchen Appliance Life Span

Having covered laundry appliances, let’s take a look at their neighbours in the kitchen and see how well they stack up. Similarly to washers and dryers, most kitchen appliances will exhibit a positive build quality to length of life span relationship. However, regular maintenance, and how intensely/often they’re used will also be a key factor in determining the expectancy of their lifespan.

Appliance	Manufacturer Rating	Typical Lifespan Until Major Repairs
Dishwashers	5-10 years	10+ years
Fridges / Freezers	10-15 years	20+ years
Stoves / Ovens	15-20 years	20+ years
Microwaves	5-10 years	5-10 years

Unlike their laundry counterparts, kitchen appliances generally fall pretty much in-line with their manufacturer ratings, with the only major exceptions being refrigerators / freezers and stoves / ovens. These usually tend to last about double their rating at 20+ years on average before any significant repairs have to be done.

Is It Worth It To Repair An Old Appliance?

Now that we’ve got a good grip on what old is when it comes to your appliance, let’s get back to the question at hand – is it worth it to repair an old appliance?

Before we give you our definitive answer, let’s consider what factors play into this decision:

The Cost Of A New Appliance With Comparable Specifications

New appliances aren’t always cheap. Sure – you can definitely get a new dishwasher for around $600-800 bucks at the local appliance store. But will it have the same fitment as your old model? Will it wash the dishes just as well or give you yet another moist gross mess to add to the list of chores around the house?

While for appliances like Washers, Dryers, Dishwashers and Microwaves – new replacement models are usually cheap, Fridges, stoves, ovens, and freezers usually tend to run on the expensive side with new models costing as much as $3,000-4,000 depending on the specs in some cases. This makes it generally worthwhile to repair even larger issues like a busted wiring harness or broken element assemblies, malfunctioning icemakers and the such, when compared to shelling out several thousand, plus the cost of installation for a new appliance.

Reliability Of New Models Vs Older Models

At one point or another, we’ve all heard the saying – “they just don’t make them how they used to anymore”. And this saying is entirely true when it comes to appliances as well. For example, older timer-operated dryers are usually far more reliable than their new computerized counterparts. We can’t count how many control board failures we’ve seen where we have to replace the control unit and the display unit in a dryer to 100% resolve the issue. This ends up costing the customer $500-600 in just parts, plus applicable labour for diagnostics and repair. Altogether, you might be better off buying a brand new dryer at that point. And that’s not to mention the fact that a lot of these failures tend to happen within the first 10 years of a newer dryer’s life.

Of course, on the other hand, with older appliances, the availability of genuine replacement parts (if any at all) is sometimes a big issue as well. The older they get, the harder it will be for us to find the right parts to fix them.

But, that’s not to say that new appliances are entirely unreliable. Sure – there’s more features, meaning there’s more that can go wrong – but most manufacturers do put in a decent degree of care and attention when it comes to making sure their appliances don’t break down on you unreasonably quickly.

Cost Of Future Service For A Replacement Appliance

One thing that many people don’t consider when they’re thinking of whether or not to repair or replace their broken appliance is how much they’ll have to spend after the point of purchase to maintain and service their new unit. Sure, you’ve shelled out $1,500-2,000 for a brand new washer and dryer pair. And on-top of paying the installers a few hundred bucks to hook everything up – you’ll inevitably run into some sort of issues with them in the next few years. From a clogged drain to congested dryer ducting, or even appliance failures altogether – you’ll have to put aside a decent chunk of money for the rainy days that will unavoidably come sooner or later.

That said, as a good rule of thumb – the newer the tech is, the more expensive the repairs will be. This is due to the fact that not only do new technologies require extensive up-to-date training and knowledge on the technicians part – but they are generally also more complicated, which means the parts will cost more, and more labour will be required for the repair to be completed successfully.

Closing Thoughts

So, with all of the above in mind – let’s answer the question we’ve been pondering definitively. Our general recommendation to most of our clients is – yes, it’s worthwhile to repair an old appliance, given that other parts and systems in your appliance are in good working order and there’s no trouble on the horizon.

However, understandably, this can be hard to pinpoint and make any guarantees on. For example, if we’re inspecting your dryer, we may find all of the motion components to be in good order – but we won’t be able to make any guarantees on how long they’ll last as that depends entirely on how you use the machine. If you throw a few heavy duvets in there over the next few months, that may just be enough to seize the rollers and pulley, snap a belt, or even have the drum give out in very rare cases.

That said – when you’re thinking about whether or not you should repair or replace your broken appliance, refer to the info above to help guide you in the right direction, and make the best decision for yourself. As a professional appliance repair company, we’ll always happily make our recommendation – but we’ll follow our client’s lead in the end.