How to determine the age of your appliances

Most of us depend on our appliances. If they work well, our lives tend to run smoothly. However, having an appliance stop functioning correctly or, worse, break down altogether can lead to additional time and expenses that come with replacing food, needing to travel to the laundromat or having to wash dishes by hand.

Knowing the age of your appliances — not to mention their average life span — is an important way to avoid unwanted surprises down the road. If you’ve just moved into a new home and are budgeting for home projects or just planning ahead, you might be eyeing your appliances and wondering how old they are and how much longer they will last. 

One refrigerator model or washer often looks like another, though, and determining the specific year can be something homeowners struggle with. This article will walk you through how to find appliance age and even where to find information on specific brands.

How to find appliance age by serial number

There are several ways you can find out the age of your appliances. You can ask the previous owner or look at the owner’s manual. However, if neither of those options is available, the serial number sticker is a reliable, quick and easy way to determine the age of home appliances. 

One important note: Make sure the number you’re looking at is the serial number, not the model number. The two are often confused. Generally, the serial number will record the manufacture date of your appliance. However, how that serial number tells you the age of your appliance is different depending on which manufacturer made it. 

Here, we’ll show you how to read the serial numbers for each of the largest manufacturers. 

Find GE appliance age by serial number

GE, which also manufactures the Hotpoint and American RCA brands in the United States, records the month and year the appliance was made using a letter system. They are the first two characters in your serial number. For example, if the serial number is FG333333A, the first letter in the sequence (F) is the month and the second letter in the sequence (G) is the year. 

The letters for the month are recorded as:

• A = January
• D = February
• F = March
• G = April
• H = May
• L = June
• M = July
• R = August
• S = September
• T = October
• V = November
• Z = December

The letter representing the year is a bit trickier because one letter will represent multiple years. If your appliance was manufactured in 2007 or 2019, for example, they are represented by the same letter, so you may have to dig a bit more to find the specific year. The breakdown of which letters represent which years is as follows:

• A = 1977, 1989, 2001, 2013
• D = 1978, 1990, 2002, 2014
• F = 1979, 1991, 2003, 2015
• G = 1980, 1992, 2004, 2016
• H = 1981, 1993, 2005, 2017
• L = 1982, 1994, 2006, 2018
• M = 1983, 1995, 2007, 2019
• R = 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020
• S = 1985, 1997, 2009, 2021
• T = 1986, 1998, 2010, 2022
• V = 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023
• Z = 1998, 2000, 2012, 2024

Find Frigidaire appliance age by serial number

If you have a Frigidaire, White/Westinghouse, Tappen or Kelvinator brand appliance, you’ll find the manufacture date on the serial number but in a slightly different way. Unlike GE, Frigidaire records its appliance date of manufacture with numbers instead of letters. 

To find it, you need to look for the third character in the number. That’s the year of manufacture for the appliance. The next two characters are the week of manufacture. So, for example, let’s assume your serial number is NF81064326. The number 8 represents the year. The difficult part here is that 8 could be 2018, 2008, 1998 or even 1988. 

If you aren’t sure, you’ll probably need to dig a little more to find the exact year by looking at the physical appliance or digging out the manual if you have it. The next two characters make the number 10, so it was made in the 10th week of the year, which would be in March.

Find Maytag appliance age by serial number

Maytag, which also owns Jenn-Air and MagicChef, puts its date code at the end of the serial number using letters from the alphabet. The first letter in the code is the year, and the second letter represents the month. For example, let’s say the serial number is 99999978LA. The L is the year, and the A is the month. 

• E = 1980, 2004 or March
• G = 1981, 2005 or April
• J = 1982, 2006 or May
• L = 1983, 2007 or June
• N = 1984 or July
• P = 1985 or August
• R = 1986 or September
• T = 1987 or October
• V = 1988 or November
• X = 1989 or December
• B = 1990 or January
• D = 1991 or February
• F = 1992 or March
• H =1993 or April
• K = 1994 or May
• M = 1995 or June
• Q = 1996 or July
• S = 1997 or August
• U = 1998 or September
• W = 1999 or October
• Y = 2000 or November
• Z = 2001 or December
• A = 2002 or January
• C = 2003 or February

You may have noticed the years listed only go up to 2007. If your appliance was made later than 2007, you’ll want to use the Whirlpool method for finding the manufacture date on the serial number tag. How to use the Whirlpool model is explained below. 

Find Whirlpool appliance age by serial number

With Whirlpool, the serial number only records the year the appliance was made without getting into a specific week or month. The age-finder code for the year is the third character from the end of the sequence and will be a letter. The year codes are as follows:

• K = 1982, 2001
• L = 1983, 2002
• M = 1984, 2003
• P = 1985, 2004
• R = 1986, 2005
• S = 1987, 2006
• T = 1988, 2007
• V = 1989, 2008
• W = 1990, 2009
• X = 1991, 2010
• Y = 1992, 2011
• A = 1993, 2012
• B = 1994, 2013
• D = 1995, 2014
• E = 1996, 2015
• F = 1997, 2016
• G = 1998, 2017
• H = 1999, 2018
• J = 2000, 2019

Find LG appliance age by serial number

LG uses numbers that are fairly straightforward to find the age of the appliances within the serial number prefix. You want to look for the first number, which will represent the year. The next two will represent the month. For example, if your serial number is 8 10 tagh33333, the 8 represents 2008, and the 10 represents October. 

Find Kenmore or Sears appliance age by serial number

Because Kenmore and Sears are department store brands, they sell appliances made by someone else but labeled Kenmore or Sears. If you want to find the age of your appliance, you will have to first find the model number to find out who actually made your appliance. Then you can use their system to find the age by the serial number.

The following brands make Kenmore and Sears appliances, and we’ve provided their model numbers to make it easier for you:

• Amana: 596
• Caloric: 174 or 960
• D&M: 587
• Fedders: 484
• GE: 363 or 362
• Gibson/Frigidaire: 253
• Jenn-Air: 629
• Kelvinator/Frigidaire: 417, 662 or 628
• Litton: 747
• Maycor: 925
• Roper: 103, 647, 835, 911, 155 or 278
• Speed Queen: 651
• Tappan/Frigidaire: 791
• Toshiba: 562
• WCI/Frigidaire: 790
• Whirlpool: 106, 110, 562, 665 or 198

Protect appliances from expensive repair and replacement costs with Cinch

Knowing the age of your appliance can help avoid surprises due to failure. However, sometimes appliances do fail. When the unexpected happens — whether it’s your dishwasher, refrigerator or washing machine — Cinch Home Services has you covered with our Appliances protection plan that includes all kinds of major appliance types. 

Do you know what our home warranties don’t include? The hard-to-read fine print. We make it easy for you to understand what your plan includes in advance so you know what you’re getting. We also don’t include any gotchas, only guaranteed service. We have a 180-day workmanship guarantee and protection for unknown, pre-existing issues. And if the issue can’t be repaired, we offer discounts on brand-name appliances. Get started today by requesting a free quote from Cinch.

Learn how to find the age of your appliances on the appliance itself.