Midcentury Home Reveals Surprising Cache of Vintage Appliances

We know CandysDirt.com readers love a historic home, and home inspectors do, too. If you love looking at houses and solving problems, there is nothing like a historic home for getting in all the nooks and crannies and finding all the interesting details: unique structures that have held up over time and vintage appliances. In previous columns, we’ve looked at dangerous and outdated systems that can be found in older and historic homes.

In looking through content for this week’s column, I came across a cache of photos from a house that was a veritable midcentury time capsule. I can’t share the details, but the sellers were the original owners of the house and all the vintage appliances were original — most of them still working just fine!

So this week I have an interesting mixed bag of “they don’t make ’em like they used to.” And in some cases, maybe they should, in others, they definitely shouldn’t. Historic homes: so fun!

A Very Good Dishwasher

This charming piece of dishwashing history is just as ugly as can be, but as they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” And it ain’t broke.

I looked it up to see if they stopped making these for some reason, like if somebody figured out that they have a tendency to explode or they’re are made entirely of asbestos or something like that, but no. They actually do still make these, they’re just not this ugly in 2023.

The average life expectancy of a dishwasher these days is about 10 years though, so I think we can all agree with the circa 1960s ad below that this RCA Whirlpool dishwasher is a very good dishwasher.

Vent-A-Hood: Approved By The ‘Man of the House’

Again, nothing wrong here. Just a very, very old Vent-A-Hood. That works. Cue someone’s Paw-Paw saying, “Back in my day, we built things to last.” You sure did, Paw-Paw. And then you painted them with lead paint.

More Families Buy Lennox

This is a 1950s model Lennox water heater and — I don’t know if this is boring you, but IT STILL WORKS. But there are vintage appliances and then there are just ancient appliances.

I asked the inspector, “Surely they need to replace this, it’s not safe, right?” He said, “There was some evidence of flame rollout, but otherwise it was good.” After 70-ish years. The average life expectancy of a water heater is 10 to 15 years these days, just FYI.

Every Lucky Streak Must End

I know, you were rooting for everything in this house to be something great and old that still works. This one is old, and it works, but it’s not great. Frankly, we’re lucky that these folks and their cool vintage appliances survived to 2023, because this is a Wadsworth panel box, and it does need to be replaced.

Wadsworth panel boxes were very popular in the 1950’s but were later found to pose a serious fire risk due to their aluminum electrical wiring and ungrounded wires. They often fail to trip when circuits become overloaded, and when that occurs, the aluminum wiring can overheat, melt to the hot bus, and spark a fire. One of the things that likely saved them was the very fact that they didn’t upgrade their appliances to newer models which would have almost certainly tripped the breakers.

The Ultimate Vintage Appliance

This is a PHONE.

If you are concerned about the life expectancy or maintenance of your major appliances and want to get advice from a Dallas home inspector, you can have a seasonal maintenance consultation anytime, not just when you’re buying or selling your house.