That Dishwasher’s a Lie: What to Know About Pre-Owned Appliances

The red flags no inspector will catch—but your wallet definitely will

Congratulations on your new house!
We apologize for the dishwasher-shaped disaster.

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Many of us have been there. You think you’re getting a bunch of fantastic appliances as part of the package for your new home. You’ve got the inspector’s stamp of approval. And then? You find out—yeah, it runs. Right into a $2,000 floor replacement.

This week, we’re looking at some of the things people wish they’d been told before signing on the dotted line.

The Problem with “It Works”

When “functional” means “barely alive.”

Here’s the problem: a home inspector is meant to identify structural problems in a home before it’s sold. Their job is to check for gaping leaks, mold, or giant holes that may or may not lead to Narnia. Or to flag any potential red flags in the home’s history—like that one time the stairs had to be replaced due to termites.

But if appliances are included in the sale, their job stops at “does it turn on?”

As we’ve said over and over: an appliance can technically function and still be struggling—causing inefficiency, damage, or real safety hazards.

Important takeaway: If appliances are included, inspect them yourself. Make sure they work the way you want them to.

Red Flags & Real Costs

What they won’t show you up front (but you’ll absolutely pay for later).

This isn’t about calling anyone out—unless we’re writing a recall post. But it’s worth remembering: a realtor’s job is to show you how the house is now, not walk you through its full appliance history.

Here are some common problem spots:

• Refrigerator – Cooling issues, signs of refrigerant leaks, unsealed gaskets

• Oven/Range – Inconsistent heating, faulty burners, safety concerns

• Dishwasher – Leaks, pump issues, water damage you can’t see

• Washer/Dryer – Mold, clogged vents, odd noises, lint buildup

• HVAC – Mold, rust, hidden costs from poor maintenance

And just because something looks clean doesn’t mean it was deep-cleaned or that hidden issues aren’t still lingering. You can wipe up mold blooms, but depending on the type, it may still be thriving inside the walls.

Questions to Ask Before You Buy

Because the seller sure isn’t volunteering this info.

If the appliances are included, ask yourself: Why are they being left behind?
It could be convenience. It could be generosity. Or it could be that the seller’s tired of dealing with them.

Either way, a few friendly questions can go a long way—and they can be phrased as light conversation to keep things smooth with the seller and agent.

Try asking:

• Can I test the appliances during a showing or second visit?

• How old are they, and can I see proof of maintenance?

• What’s the plan for disposal or replacement if they die tomorrow?

Strategy, Not Sentiment

Don’t fall in love with the fridge (or anything else).

It’s easy to get caught up in the look of the kitchen suite—but appliances can fail between closing and move-in. Rather than falling in love, think strategy.

If you don’t like the appliances, consider negotiating them out. Ask the realtor. Ask the seller.

Some buyers even find success casually suggesting they’d prefer the appliances removed in exchange for a lower sale price. Not every seller will go for it, but if the units are old or visibly failing, some will be understanding.

If removal isn’t an option, it’s time for a family strategy session:

• What’s on your must-have list?

• What are you willing to live with?

Does the kitchen suite need to match? Can you deal with mismatched finishes? Do you have to have a working fridge on day one? Your answers will be different from someone else’s, but having that clarity up front helps keep expectations grounded.

Know What Comes With the House

Don’t assume. Verify. Then verify again.

If you’ve never bought a home before, hear this loud and clear: verify everything. If you have bought a home before, well, you probably already learned this the hard way.

Don’t assume anything—from your move-in date to the status of the appliances to who’s paying what in closing costs. Talk through all of it with your realtor, and keep notes.

That includes:

• Who’s doing the inspections?

• Who pays for problems that arise?

• Do those problems affect the sale price?

• When is your final walk-through, and what should still be in the house at that point?

We’ve heard more than one horror story about buyers expecting a washer and dryer that never materialized. Sometimes it was never part of the deal. Other times, the seller just changed their mind last-minute. If it’s not in writing, it’s not guaranteed.

Think Past Move-In Day

Eventually, everything breaks. Be ready.

It’s unfortunate but true: every appliance has an expiration date. Even if they seem perfect on move-in day, that doesn’t mean they’ll last the year.

Start by asking about local disposal rules. Some cities offer curbside pickup. Others require you to schedule in advance—or fine you for putting appliances out unannounced. Your realtor should be able to get that info quickly.

Even if the appliances seem solid, you’ll rarely get a maintenance binder or history log. So assume nothing. Just because it’s running today doesn’t mean it will be next spring. That’s why we always recommend: as soon as you move in, start budgeting for replacements.

They may be new to you, but they won’t stay new forever.

Your Future Self Will Thank You

If you’re feeling even slightly unsure after reading this—walk away. If you’ve seen sketchy signs, especially involving water or fire, walk away. Your wallet will thank you. Your future self will too.

There’s no reason to be stuck with someone else’s grime. And more importantly, you shouldn’t be stuck with their safety hazard.

If you’ve recently purchased a home and didn’t get a chance to ask all the right questions, we can help. Schedule a maintenance appointment with us. One of our technicians will do a full walkthrough of the appliances in your home, let you know what issues we find, what to watch for, and how to keep everything running in tip-top shape.

You can reach us through our website or give us a call.

Appliance Rescue Service — helping you keep your home running, whether it’s old or new, so that you can keep running too.

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Call: (214) 599-0055

Top 9 Appliance Issues to Watch Out for Before Buying a Home

 Avoiding Appliance Surprises: Key Issues to Watch for When Buying a Home

Are you dreaming of homeownership? It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of picking out paint colors and deciding which room will hold your favorite furniture. But before getting too comfortable, it’s important to face a hard truth: those shiny appliances may not be as reliable as they look.

Every home comes with its quirks, and the appliances are no exception. Knowing what to expect can make all the difference in your home-buying experience, and that’s where we come in. With years of experience helping our clients repair both new and new-to-them appliances, we’ve heard our fair share of horror stories. Here’s what you need to know to avoid a few of your own.

One:

Do not exhaust your savings just to get into the house. You'll end up borrowing either money or trouble, and you'll probably borrow both if you panic about it.

Something will always come up. Even if you're buying the well-maintained, paid-off family home from your great granddaddy for the princely sum of a single dollar, something will come up. Sometimes it's paperwork, sometimes it's appliances, sometimes it's an outright disaster.

Possible nightmares:

The assessor will come back with a much higher valuation and your closing costs will skyrocket because you have to front a portion of property taxes. The homeowner's insurance will decline to issue you a policy because you don't have a handrail on your two steps to the front door. The line to the washer will disconnect or rupture spontaneously, and because you haven't moved in yet, the laundry room will flood before anyone finds it. A mouse will get in and eat something critical, frying the brand built-in fridge even though there have never been mice.

It's always something. Probably something ridiculous, at that.

And then, once you've handled that, with homeownership comes... more bills. Expect the bills. Don't drain your savings.

Two:

Every home is different, but all of them have some kind of headache.

As everyone knows, the first home is usually a case of "what can I afford?" rather than "what do I want?" Subsequent homes land somewhere in between those two, usually one step closer to the "wants" side with each purchase.

From our experience, the first home we bought was an absolute dumpster fire. Former rental, pest infestation, broken appliances, damaged floor, rotting subfloor, plumbing problems, leaking roof, busted central air, holes in drywall and interior doors, yard in disarray and full of junk... If you can dream up a problem, we probably faced it with the first house. And we faced it on fumes - the bank account was dry. It took us years, and every spare penny, to make it livable. That first piece of advice we just imparted? Learned that the hard way.

The second home was a family property, a beautiful recent renovation with new-old-stock matching appliances. Stellar, as opposed to the home we moved out of. But it had its own headaches: poor wiring, not grounded, drafty windows, no air conditioning at all, an old well prone to freezing in winter, no access to utilities like home internet. Learning from past mistakes allowed us to hire a pro and knock out the pressing issues much more quickly. This house is the one we consider our permanent residence; we'll return to it eventually. Life has simply necessitated a relocation for now.

The third home was a lesson in problems not readily apparent. It passed inspection with flying colors, but our hurdles there were the kind only revealed after living there for a while. It was a dry climate, but it turned out the storm windows and back door leaked in the event of rain. Previous water damage had been patched, but the underlying problem remained. The fridge squawked and squealed, mostly in the dead of night. The garbage disposal quit almost right away. The central A/C unit needed to be repaired in the first six months, too. The stove never worked quite as expected - slow to preheat, hot spots, cold spots, etc. Even the porches needed work - they had been repaired, but not well. Just another short term, band-aid fix, in a neighborhood full of them. Pretty on the surface quickly became a money pit, and the other houses nearby seemed to use the same low-cost handyman (or at least follow the same philosophy) as the previous owner. Learned from this experience: declining property value is not just a boogeyman. It is real and it can bite you in the behind.

The fourth home? Location, location, location. We have finally learned not to compromise on things like school districts, primary care and hospital access, and accessible recreation. They're not obvious things on the surface, but Lord are they important. This house taught us damage can be fixed, appliances and fixtures and flooring can be replaced, the yard can be modified, but the house is literally not going anywhere else. And with a teenager in the house, keeping the kiddo educated, healthy, and entertained/out of trouble have moved to the uppermost priority slot.

Three:

You may have paid extra for the appliances. That doesn't make them worth anything.

Used appliances are always a lotto situation. Sometimes you hit the jackpot: it's all pretty new, it matches, it's what you would have bought for yourself, it's been maintained well, the previous owner has all the paperwork, the manufacturer warranties are all intact and transferable... It's a unicorn situation, but it could happen.

It usually doesn't.

Go in knowing you might have just paid a premium for something you could find unusable, even if your inspector says it does what it should. Our stove in the third house, for example. We bake A LOT. A slow preheat isn't a problem for people who don't prioritize baking, and since it does heat to temperature, it technically works. (Works like shit, that's for sure.)

We're also really, really choosy about washing machines and dryers. The washer and dryer that came with the fourth house went right out the door on our first day. They worked, but they didn't work up to our standards and had to go to make room for a set that did.

Four:

Cruddy appliances do not warrant pushing for seller concessions.

Do not waste your - or anyone else's - time quibbling about the appliances. The process of asking to adjust the sale price of the house for things like this isn't worth the time or effort, and may end up costing you the house when your offer gets rejected. Negotiating is not exactly appealing when there's someone else willing to pay full asking price. 

Five:

Your inspector is there to help, but is not omnipotent.

S/he cannot tell the future, nor is s/he paid enough or given enough time to catch everything. The inspector will walk through and assess things like doors and windows and lights and plumbing, check for mold or pests, and test the appliances if they convey with the house. The report is simply the inspector calling it as it is - here's where you find out one burner on the stove doesn't work, or the shower diverter is jammed. Do not try to push the seller into fixing every little thing. However, big things like mold remediation are sometimes worth fighting over.

The inspection on home four tipped us off to the examples above. We've been here a while now, replaced the jammed diverter on day one and are still using the stove that came with the house. Three burners are enough for now, and there were other priorities (like the washer and dryer).

The inspectors are not to blame for things like appliances kicking the proverbial bucket. They know if it works when they're there. They don't know what's happening a day, a week or a month from now any more than you do. First time home buyers often seem to think the inspector should have a crystal ball or something and warn them the dishwasher will lose the plastic clip on the detergent door next Thursday, or that the built-in microwave will only cook two more bags of popcorn before it gives up the ghost. Give everyone a break. Also, see tip number one again.

Six:

Your appliance preferences and needs are yours - know your situation and adjust priorities accordingly.

We know plenty of people who would have prioritized replacing our apartment-sized fridge over getting a better washer and dryer, and just gone to the laundromat until they could afford the washer and dryer they wanted. This is a valid solution for lots of people. It's not for us.

We do an egregious amount of laundry. We do so much laundry that in a month, the money spent at the laundromat would have bought a nice used washer with a warranty. Also, our trip to the nearest laundromat is much longer than the trip to the grocery store. We decided we could get by with a tiny fridge and freezer by making more frequent grocery trips, and adjusted accordingly. 

Seven:

Assume the previous owner of any used appliance did not know the word "maintenance."

Any one! One that comes with the house, one you found on Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, one you bought from the neighbor, one you picked up from a reseller shop... It cannot be stressed enough. Any appliance you buy used will at bare minimum need a scrub before you welcome it into your home.

It is safer to assume the previous owner had many long haired cats, at least one alligator, several unsupervised toddlers and had never heard of Lysol or vacuum cleaners.

Don’t expect it to look like this. This is after HOURS of work.

You will find signs that it's used. Scratches, dents, bite marks, loose alphabet magnets stuck in strange places, fur (oh golly, the fur), dust, dirt, lint, mystery caked-on stains, and other assorted nightmare fuel.

Be ready and willing to put in the work, or be prepared to fork over more cash.

Eight:

Do you see lights out in an appliance? It's telling you something.

If you see an easily replaceable appliance bulb out, say the one in the fridge or under a built-in microwave, that's a good sign the person before you didn't prioritize simple maintenance. They would rather live without it and/or work around it than exert the effort to pick up a bulb at the store and change it out.

Be ready to deep clean these appliances, and be on the lookout for more overlooked simple maintenance projects elsewhere in the house. Check to see if there's lint trapped in the dryer or dryer vent hose - another five minute project, but one that may prevent a serious fire hazard. Check your water valves under sinks, behind fridges and washers, and behind toilets; turn them on/off a time or two annually to prevent them from locking up (but only do this when you have a hardware store open or a replacement on hand in case it's already seized by scale or defective). Check the smoke/CO2 alarms and make sure they have batteries and function. Clean the filters in the vent fan over the stove and in the dishwasher. Check HVAC filters and be ready to replace them all.

Nine:

Homeowners insurance doesn't specifically cover your appliances.

The vast majority of homeowners policies consider your appliances just another thing under the personal property category. If one or more kick the bucket on you, your policy won't do much about it. However, if they're stolen or damaged by a storm, your policy may pay to replace them. Read your policy, and if you struggle to understand it, make sure you ask questions of your insurer. There are other warranties and insurance policies you can explore if you are interested in appliance breakdown coverage.

Shopping for a new home is full of surprises, and the appliances that come with it can often be one of the biggest unknowns. But with a little preparation and the right support, you can handle whatever comes your way. At Appliance Rescue Service, we’re here to help when those unexpected appliance issues arise. Our experienced technicians are just a call away, ready to ensure your new home remains as comfortable and functional as you dreamed. Don’t let appliance troubles dampen your excitement – trust us to keep your new space running smoothly. 

Website 

(214) 599-0055

Additional Reading

5 Simple Ways to Get Rid of Your Old Appliances

Outdated Kitchen Appliance Trends