Do Household Appliances Really Not Last As Long As They Used To?

Authored by Ross Pomeroy via RealClearScience,

Everybody knows that household appliances don’t last as long as they used to. But is this conventional wisdom really true? Or is it just one of those alluring fables we like to tell ourselves about the good ol’ days?

Internet searches provide copious anecdotes. News outlets generally interview repair technicians, who tell a convincing and consistent story. Appliances built in the 1970s generally lasted thirty to fifty years, they say. Today, domestic mainstays like washing machines, ovens, fridges, and dryers get replaced about every decade. Technicians blame an industry push towards computerization, an increase in the number of individual components, and the use of flimsier materials like plastic and aluminum rather than steel. The results of these trends are appliances that break more often and are harder and more costly to repair.

But where is the hard data to back these tales? It’s surprisingly hard to come by.

Researchers Kamila Krych and Johan Berg Pettersen in the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology sought to fill the gap.

“We investigate how the sales and ownership of large household appliances have evolved since these appliances were introduced in Norwegian households, and we use this co-evolution to estimate the lifetimes,” they explained in their paper, published in January to the Journal of Industrial Ecology.

The duo estimated the lifetimes of fridges, freezers, washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers, and ovens owned in Norway between 1940 and 2022. Their analysis revealed the following trends and factoids:

• Starting the 1990s, the lifetimes of fridges and freezers began slightly increasing, although the difference was not statistically significant.
• In the 1990s, the lifetimes of dishwashers and tumble dryers started to decrease. But again, the difference was not significant.
• In the 1990s and early 2000s, the lifetimes of washing machines and ovens fell off a cliff, respectively dropping from 19.2 to 10.6 years (–45%) and from 23.6 years to 14.3 years (–39%).
• Older appliances lasted between 10 and 30 years.
• Modern fridges, washing machines, dryers, ovens, and dishwashers operate between 10 and 15 years, while freezers last around 20.

“Our study suggests that the lifetimes of washing machines and ovens have decreased but provides no direct explanation for these changes,” they wrote. “The reasons for the identified lifetime decrease could be linked to technical, economic, or social factors or a combination of these.”

On the technical side, increasing reliance on electric parts, as well as added functionality and features, may have hindered longevity, they speculated. Economically, they noted that appliance-makers have striven to lower up-front prices for decades now. According to U.S. Labor Department statistics, home appliance prices declined 12% from the beginning of 2013 through the end of 2023. This race-to-the bottom may have eroded quality in the process, however.

There also might be something to the argument that new appliances are over-designed and harder to repair. On this front, the European Union has put in place “right-to-repair” rules that require manufacturers to produce replacement parts for at least ten years and design their machines to be fixable with everyday tools. While there’s no federal “right-to-repair” laws in the U.S., a handful of states have passed them.

Krych and Pettersen also raised a surprisingly simple explanation for the decline in washing machine lifespans: we use them more than we used to. 

“An average Norwegian family of four ran two washing cycles per week in 1960 but eight in 2000. This change in laundry habits is consistent with a general societal change in how cleanliness is perceived in Western countries. Given that the durability of washing machines is generally given as the number of cycles and that a change in laundry habits results in more cycles per year, we could expect more frequent replacements of washing machines.”

While Krych and Pettersen’s study may not be a perfect proxy for every developed market, it does at last bring empirical data to a well-trodden debate. Are household appliances less durable than they used to be? In some cases yes, in others no. But like a new washing machine with a gazillion wash options, sensors, and internet connectivity, the overall picture is complicated.