Second, finished appliances and their components are designed to be lighter, making them cheaper to ship. Finally, tighter settings, tighter tolerances, and modern electronic controls mean more plastic rather than metal, resulting in reduced durability. This impractical design is the norm in the world of home appliances. On top of that, Myles says that many replacement parts are no longer available after just three to five years.
After that, appliance brands alter the internal design, making repairs costly or impossible and making old machines obsolete. Myles says that some manufacturers restrict parts “just in time” to make an appliance obsolete and force the consumer to buy a new one. It's no wonder that the typical warranty period for home appliances is only one or two years. It seems like appliances used to last forever. Appliances appear to have a lifespan of about 10 years, according to statistics from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).
Under the Department of Energy's appliance standards, manufacturers are developing new, more efficient appliances that save consumers money on their energy bills. According to Ryan Finlay, an appliance technician who founded the online appliance repair school TradeSkills, appliances manufactured in the 1970s generally lasted 30 to 50 years. Whether older appliances are better than modern appliances depends on what is considered “best for the consumer”. People who subscribe to the theory of planned obsolescence point to the design of many modern appliances that are almost impossible to repair.
And if manufacturers make it difficult to repair modern appliances, it's possible that newer appliances will end up being the only thing available anyway. In addition, anyone should be able to disassemble new appliances with common tools and not with the patented screws that many manufacturers use to keep consumers away and facilitate repairs and recycling more efficiently. But is there any truth in this commonplace observation? Are old-fashioned appliances considerably better than modern ones? Is the planned obsolescence of devices more than just a myth? A closer look at this phenomenon may shed some light on why older appliances seem to outlast newer ones by a wide margin. Myles saw more repairs and with more urgency than usual.
Customers needed to have their appliances fixed yesterday. If what you want most is an appliance that you can replace and then forget about it for a few decades, older appliances historically last longer than modern appliances. I have spoken to several appliance repairers and they all tell me that the lifespan of most appliances manufactured today is an average of 4 years.
