Short answer
Broadly: refrigerators and ranges the longest, washers and dryers in the middle, dishwashers the shortest. What matters more than the averages is where your machine sits in its own life, because that is what decides whether a repair is worth making.
Why we will not print a table of years
Because the numbers you see quoted vary enormously by source and are frequently repeated without anyone checking them. What we can tell you honestly is the ordering — refrigerators and ranges outlast washers and dryers, which outlast dishwashers — and that build quality within a category varies more than the category average does.
A well-built washer can outlive a poorly built refrigerator. The badge on the front tells you less about this than the way the machine is put together, which is something we can see once we are in front of it.
What shortens it around here
Hard and mineral-heavy water, which a great many homes outside the towns are on. Scale builds on heating elements, valves and ice makers, and it is the single most common accelerant we see in this service area.
Restricted airflow is second — lint in a dryer path, dust on condenser coils. Both make a machine work harder than it was designed to for years before anything actually fails.
What extends it
Cleaning the dryer vent run properly, not just the lint screen. Vacuuming refrigerator coils once or twice a year. Not overloading a washer. Running a dishwasher hot and descaling it if you are on a well. None of that is glamorous and all of it works.
Still not sure how this applies to your machine? Call and ask — we would rather answer a question over the phone than have you guess. We cover Rock Island, the Quad Cities and every community within 50 miles.
(309) 430-9594This comes up most on