Why Your Appliances Don’t Last Like They Used To (And What You Can Do About It)

Between work, family, and everything else Chicago throws at you, keeping your space clean and functional can feel like a constant battle. When your appliances start acting up, it adds another layer of stress to your already busy life.

The Modern Appliance Dilemma

You’ve probably heard the stories: “My grandma’s washing machine lasted 50 years!” But the reality today is quite different. Modern appliances are marvels of technology, but this complexity comes at a cost to longevity.

According to extensive research, today’s machines typically last just beyond their 5-year warranty period. The fundamental difference lies in complexity—modern appliances can contain up to 20 computer circuit boards, making repairs much more challenging than with their simpler predecessors.

Why Appliances Break Sooner Now

The Efficiency vs. Durability Trade-off

Regulations pushing for energy efficiency have forced manufacturers to use different materials. Refrigerator cooling systems now use aluminum instead of copper because it’s more efficient at removing heat. However, aluminum systems often can’t be repaired—they must be completely replaced.

Similarly, washing machine drums have shifted from metal to plastic for lighter weight and better efficiency. While metal could rust, plastic components crack and can’t be fixed. This creates a difficult choice: do you want energy savings or longer-lasting appliances?

The Price War Effect

Global competition has dramatically lowered appliance prices. Adjusted for inflation, a washer-dryer pair that cost $2,389 in 1972 now sells for about $1,200. To meet these price points, manufacturers combine multiple components into single modular plastic pieces. When these break, replacement is your only option.

How to Make Your Appliances Last Longer

While you can’t turn back time on appliance manufacturing, you can take practical steps to extend the life of what you have:

• Choose fewer features: Basic models with fewer electronic components tend to last longer and are easier to repair
• Avoid brand-new models: Like cars, first-year models often have bugs that get worked out in later versions
• Pick simple designs: Non-digital dials and traditional configurations (like top-freezer refrigerators) cause fewer problems
• Maintain regularly: Proper cleaning and maintenance can significantly extend appliance lifespan

When It’s Time for Professional Help

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, appliances reach the end of their lifespan. When you’re dealing with multiple broken appliances or just don’t have time for maintenance, consider professional home cleaning to keep your space functional.

If you’re in a time crunch and need fast cleaning services, Jikas Cleaning can help you maintain a clean home while you deal with appliance issues. For particularly tough situations, our deep cleaning help can restore order to any space.

As Chicago’s trusted cleaning service near me, we understand how appliance problems can disrupt your home maintenance routine. That’s why we make it easy to schedule a cleaning that works with your busy life.

Whether you need regular apartment cleaning or want to book an appointment for a one-time refresh, our team is ready to help. We’re proud to be your local Chicago cleaning company that understands the unique needs of city living.

This is an important video and I want you to hear it. If you own a fridge, a stove, a dishwasher, a microwave, a washer, a dryer, or if you plan on buying any of those items in the near future, you need to understand what’s going on in the appliance world right now, and why it seems like appliances just aren’t made the way they used to be. I just finished reading an incredible article from Wire Cutter. The author is Rachel Wharton, and she spent 6 months researching this article. It’s called The Real Reasons Your Appliances Die Young. I’ve got a link to it down below. And she interviewed engineers, repair techs, appliance executives, and more. And what she found confirms what many of us have suspected for years. But it also includes some very surprising information. And as someone who talks about appliances all the time, both using them and caring for them. And quite frankly, a lot of people in the comments will ask me my opinions about appliances. I felt it was really important that I review this article with you and some of Rachel’s findings so that you can make some really good informed decisions when it comes to buying appliances. I really want to cover off the facts, the myths, what you can do to extend the life of your appliance, and what you need to know when you’re going out and shopping for a new one. Give this video a thumbs up if you are excited to learn about the conspiracy theory of big appliance. And just a quick reminder, if you haven’t done so already, to subscribe to the Clean My Space channel. And I just wanted to let you know that this video is brought to you by our sister company, Makers Clean, where we sell our premium microfiber cleaning tools and so much more. Now, Rachel started off her article with a quandry I often find myself in, which I thought was pretty ironic, and that is people will say, “Oh, 30 years ago, 50 years ago, you could buy a washing machine and that thing would last forever. That thing would last longer than some marriages.” I mean, you would hear all kinds of comments about how long these appliances would last. But is that true? In fact, what Rachel found in this research was that the average machine back then lasted on average 10 to 15 years, not 30. The real difference that we’re seeing now is that machines break just outside of that 5-year warranty period. The reason you can’t compare the machines is because modern machines, the ones that you find today, are inherently more complex than those machines that used to exist. And more complexity means that it’s more difficult to repair. Rachel quotes Dean Landers and says, “Some modern machines contain nearly 20 computer circuit boards. Newer models are designed with modular systems, meaning if even a small part fails, the whole component needs to be replaced.” Now, there’s a section in the article that says blame regulations. And I found this one particularly interesting because of course we know regulatory standards are there to protect us as consumers and also have some environmental implications, some energy efficiency implications. Perhaps there are materials that are banned. For whatever reason, regulations exist and these appliance manufacturers have to abide by them and that changes how a product is engineered and what materials are used. But what does that mean for us as consumers on the receiving end? Rachel quotes Antonia Zuniga Padres in the article and says, “Standards have also prompted changes that max out efficiency but potentially reduce repairability.” And I think this is one of the most important lines in the article because what cost are we getting this efficiency at? Right? We have to give up a lot in order to get this efficiency. We all know we want our appliances to be more efficient. We want to spend less on energy. But what does that mean for the actual appliance that we’re getting? Here are a couple of salient examples. The first one is a refrigerator cooling system. It used to have copper components that a technician could weld and repair that would fix a leak in the cooling system. But now they’re mostly made of aluminum which can resist corrosion and is more affordable and lightweight, meaning it can be more efficient at removing heat. But most of the time, an appliance repair person can’t just go in and fix it. Changes in regulations can impact design and repairability in other ways as well. For example, it can impact the material that a manufacturer uses when they’re designing a machine. Take a washing machine drum for example. They used to be made from metal. Now they’re made with plastic. And that’s because plastic is lighter and more efficient to operate. So, we’re not paying as much money to operate it. However, what’s the cost that that comes at? Now, metal, of course, can rust, which can cause a failure or a leak in a washing machine. But plastic, once it cracks, has to be replaced. It can’t be repaired. So, you have this question of, do I want the more energyefficient machine and reap the benefits of energy efficiency knowing that I’m going to have to replace my machine more often and that it’s going to be more difficult to repair because of these newer materials and newer components. And then when you think about it, back 50 years ago, there were only a few appliance manufacturers. Now there are many appliance manufacturers, meaning an appliance repair person would have to learn and acquire the tools and software from multiple providers. So this makes things even more complex. And then if you buy a machine that just came out, that means that your appliance repair tech might not even know how to fix your appliance or be equipped with the right tools because your appliance is so new. We went from having these analog machines without any circuitry to having these digital machines that can do amazing things, but also come with their own host of challenges. Now, guilty is charged, I have appliances that are capable of doing a lot of things, and I’m very, very happy with my appliances. But the truth is, the more things or tasks that your appliances can perform, the more bells and whistles, the more things that can potentially go wrong. That’s a risk that we have to be willing to take as consumers if we want these machines that can do these more exciting things. Something else Rachel cites in her article as a reason for appliances just not being the same as they used to, price wars, or international competition and how that affects the outer and inner workings of your appliances. Here we go. 50 years ago, you could buy an appliance, a washerdryer pair, and actually spend more money when you adjust for inflation than you would have to spend right now to buy a washer and dryer pair. Here’s an example that she gives from 1972. You could buy a clothes washer from Sears for $220 and a dryer for $90. That’s about $2,389 in 2025 adjusted for inflation. Today, you can get a washer and dryer pair on sale from Sears for about $1,200. And why is this? There are external forces like globalization that come in and push things in the market to help lower the price. When there’s no competition, there’s no incentive for any manufacturer to lower their price. But once all of these international players came in in the example of appliance manufacturing and they offered really cool high-tech appliances at lower prices, domestic manufacturers had to show up and lower their prices as well. And how did they do this? They started swapping out components so that they could meet the pricing standards that were now being set. Another interesting way that they can lower costs of manufacturing is to take what used to be 15 different components and create some sort of modular piece of plastic that replaces all of those 15 components in one. However, if that thing breaks, good luck. Now, there’s this big argument in the tech space, and you can extend that out into the appliance space about planned obsolescence where people think that manufacturers essentially design things to fail within a certain amount of time so that a consumer is forced to go out and buy one, and that is just part of said company’s business plan. But in this case, Rachel argues that it’s not planned obsolescence, but rather it’s us as consumers who constantly want the newer, nicer, smarter, more techforward appliance. I mean, if you think about when someone moves into a new house and they say, “Yeah, I don’t want that stove or dishwasher or washing machine that someone else used. I just want to replace it with new stuff.” Or they’re doing a kitchen renovation and they say, “Yeah, the color of my appliances no longer suit my needs.” This is another reason why people are replacing their appliances more frequently, and that wasn’t always the case. Now, this isn’t all doom and gloom because Rachel then shares some really great tips on how you can make the appliances that you do have last or when you’re buying a new appliance, things that you can keep in mind so that you can get the most lifespan out of your appliance. Her first strategy is to buy with fewer features. Now again, I am a fan of the features. So for me, this one would be tough. But if you’re looking for an appliance that is going to last you for as long as possible, I I mean, think about a rental building, right? They have these super basic appliances that seem to go and go and go and can be repaired and last and last and last, and they don’t have to upgrade them as often. There’s a reason why. Next up, she says to avoid those brand new models. It’s sort of like, you know, when you buy a new car. We’re in the year 2025 right now, so a 2026 might come out, but you always know that there’s going to be a bug with the 2026, so you might as well buy the 2025 vehicle because they’ve probably worked those kinks out by now. Rachel’s suggesting that the same thing applies for appliances. The appliance repair techs might not have had the time or the capability or the tech to catch up to some of this new stuff just yet. And also, if new regulations came out in a given year, then the appliance manufacturer might not have had time to catch up with all of the bugs that came out in their V1 of this new model type. She also suggests picking a simple design. So, this is everything from a non-digital dial to a refrigerator with a freezer on the top. And she provides a number of other suggestions in the article as well where these basic appliance designs that have been around forever and ever and ever and are simple cause less problems. She recommends that you maintain regularly. This is something I can totally get behind and I have tons of information available for you on the Clean My Space channel as to just how you can effectively maintain all of your appliances at home. I’ll link those videos for you down below. She also reminds you to manage your expectations. Put that idea of grandma’s washing machine that lasted for 55 years and longer than your uncle John’s marriage to your auntie Susan. Okay? Put that out of your mind cuz that is not real. You can expect your machine to last for about 5 years, maybe a little bit more. And if it goes for 10 to 12 years, you’ve done real well for yourself. So, if you feel like your appliances don’t last, it’s cuz they don’t. But there are benefits like energy efficiency, sleek design, and a lot of different technological components and features that we couldn’t previously access. So, there are pros and there are cons. And that brings me to this week’s comment question, which is, what is either the longest or the shortest you’ve ever had an appliance for? Did you like have that washing machine that lasted for 50 years in your basement? Tell me about it. And what brand was it? And on the topic of taking good care of your appliances, if you want to learn how to clean your fridge, I’ve got a link to this video right over here. If you haven’t done so already, make sure that you subscribe to the Thin My Space channel. Thanks so much for watching and we’ll see you next time.