How we check facts and build our tools
Appliance Checkup is a data and reference site. We don't run a test lab, and we never claim to have tested, opened or measured an appliance ourselves. Every figure comes from a named source or from a formula we publish here.
How we label figures
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Official | Published by a government body (CPSC, DOE, FDA, U.S. Fire Administration) or by the manufacturer. |
| Industry study | A named study, such as the NAHB/Bank of America Home Equity Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components (2007) or InterNACHI's life-expectancy chart. |
| Trade estimate | A named cost guide or survey. For repair costs we compare three independent guides (Angi, HomeGuide and Fixr) and use the middle of them, with Consumer Reports' member surveys for comparison. |
| Retailer or dealer listings | Prices published by retailers or used-appliance dealers, with the month we viewed them. |
| Our estimate | A calculation of ours. We always show the method. |
Serial-number date decoding
Each brand's rule was checked against at least two independent references, and against the manufacturer's own documentation where one exists (GE publishes its date code; LG states its format). Where references disagree we say so on the brand page and use the reading supported by the most sources and by real worked examples.
The decoder is tested against worked examples taken from those references, covering Whirlpool, GE, Samsung, LG, Frigidaire/Electrolux, Bosch/Thermador, legacy Maytag-group serials and Kenmore model prefixes. Every rule change must pass the whole test set.
Many date codes repeat (every 10, 12, 20 or 24 years). The checker shows the most recent possible date first, marks the result "check the decade", and lists the alternatives. It never shows a date in the future. Samsung's 2026 year letter is not yet confirmed by any published source, and we label it that way.
Lifespans
We compare the NAHB study, InterNACHI, U.S. Department of Energy rulemaking documents and Consumer Reports. "Typical" is the middle of the credible published figures; "low" and "high" span them. Current values: refrigerator 9–13 (typical 12), washer 5–15 (10), dryer 10–14 (13), dishwasher 9–15 (10), range 13–17 (15) years. Each lifespan page lists what each source says.
Fair-price estimates (our estimate)
Estimate = typical new price for the model class × age factor × condition factor, rounded to $5.
- 26 Sep 2026: second check of the four new pages against the live sources. Corrected: Bosch oven and fridge label positions and FD = Fertigungsnummer (production number); Amana label positions now follow Amana's own page for every appliance; wall-oven label spots; Angi stove and oven repair ranges shown separately; Fannie Mae range figure marked as multifamily; the Thermador claim softened because no source confirms its plates; the home-page example serial now matches the documented unit (C60842986).
- Age factor = 0.10 + 0.50 × (1 − age ÷ typical lifespan), never below 0.10. A nearly new unit is about 60% of new; a unit at or past its typical life is about 10%.
- Condition factor: like new 1.00, good 0.80, fair 0.55, not working 0.15.
- New-price bands come from retailer category listings and buying guides (September 2026). The formula was set against published evidence: Consumer Reports puts the average used discount at about 50%, and resale guides (Commonplace, The Appliance Advisor) cite 20–40% of retail for private sales of units a few years old.
Local markets vary a lot. Treat the range as a starting point for negotiation, not an appraisal.
Recall checks
Recall data comes from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's public Recalls API. CPSC's structured model field is almost always empty, so we read model numbers from the text of each notice, including wildcard families. A match means "open this notice and compare the full model and serial range". No match is not a guarantee, because some notices list models only in images, PDFs or on the manufacturer's site. We always link the official notice.
On the live site, the recall list is rebuilt from the full CPSC dataset every day. If that copy is unavailable, the tool queries CPSC directly from your browser.
How we use AI
We use AI tools to help write code, outlines and first drafts. A person checks every figure against the sources listed on the page before it's published. We don't publish pages generated in bulk, and we don't use AI to invent tests, reviews or experiences.
Images
Diagrams are drawn by us from manufacturers' own help pages. Photos of appliances are licensed stock photos (Pexels), credited under each one. A few illustrations are AI-generated and always captioned "Illustration (AI-generated)"; they show an action, such as reading a label, never a real person, product test, customer or member of our team.
Corrections and updates
If you find an error, tell us. We check the claim against the source, fix it, and note it in the log below. Pages that contain prices or recall information are reviewed at least monthly.
Update log
- 26 Sep 2026: added the stove lifespan page, the appliance model number lookup, and the Amana and Bosch serial number guides. An independent fact-check before publishing led to 16 corrections, including: narrowing the years an Amana can carry either serial format to about 2006–2014 (Amana was not Whirlpool-owned before 2006); relabelling new-range prices as our tiers built from HomeGuide's figures rather than HomeGuide's own; replacing an unverified Whirlpool example serial and an illustrative Amana serial with documented ones; removing a false argument about Bosch FD codes and an unsourced claim about self-clean cycles; splitting stove and oven control-board costs; removing Amana label locations we could not confirm; and adding sources for the 2006 Whirlpool–Maytag and 2012 Daikin–Goodman deals. The checker now gives a clearer message for an impossible Bosch FD year.
- 26 Sep 2026: added appliance photos (Pexels, credited) to 11 guides and two captioned AI illustrations.
- 26 Sep 2026: added "how old is my" washer, dryer and dishwasher guides. An independent fact-check before publishing corrected 11 points, including which brands put the dryer label at the top of the opening, the Kenmore 417 date position, and missing source links.
- 26 Sep 2026: repair costs now compare three independent trade guides (Angi, HomeGuide, Fixr) instead of Angi alone; the repair calculator uses the median of the three. Fixed a refrigerator lifespan row on the repair page that still showed the old 15-year high.
- 26 Sep 2026: an independent fact-check before launch led to these corrections: removed a U.S. Department of Energy 14.8-year refrigerator lifetime we could not locate in the published rule (fridge range is now 9–13 years); dated both U.S. Fire Administration dryer-fire figures (34% in 2008–2010, 31% in 2018–2020); replaced an illustrative GE serial with a documented one; noted that Sears PartsDirect reads Whirlpool year letters P, R and S one year later than our main source; corrected OfferUp shipping, a Best Buy price range and a Samsung 2016 recall remedy; replaced two dead links.
- 26 Sep 2026: launch pages published. While building the decoder we found that a published example (Bosch FD 0301) is January 2023, not March 2023 as one of our research notes said. We corrected the page before publication.