That 25 year old refrigerator is almost certainly very expensive to operate. Look at the energy use over time: 1990 -> 2015 saw a halving of power usage (1000 kWh/y -> 500 kWh/y) -- over a ten year lifespan with CA electricity at $0.19/kWh, that's $950 in increased energy expenditure as compared to a new refrigerator. ie it would be close to free.

http://aceee.org/blog/2014/09/how-your-refrigerator-has-kept...

For refrigerators at least, it doesn't make sense to make them robust enough to last more than 10-15 years since it's worth it to replace them over that time period. My understanding is the vast majority of refrigerators are then recycled. All those metals are valuable.

> All those metals are valuable.

And all those refrigerants need to be collected to prevent release to the atmosphere.

When I moved in with my wife, we replaced her 10-year old bachelor-sized fridge with a new one that was over 3x bigger and the new one had nearly the exact same power draw...

That makes a lot of sense though, a bigger fridge can have better circuit and insulation and will have a significantly larger "cold inertia".

A deep freezer is a very different beast. It is a simpler appliance with very basic components. Far fewer things to break than your combo which has to precisely regulate the temperature and has auto de-icing. I grew up with fridges that needed to be de-iced every few months. Those didn't break much either.

Sub Zero is a brand, it's not a deep freezer.

I believe Sub Zero still has sub-average lifespan.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18176916/ns/business-consumer_news...