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Serial number decoder

Serial Number & Age Lookup by Brand

Every brand states its evidence grade — direct manufacturer confirmation, a cross-verified trade convention, or an explicitly unresolved disagreement between sources — and every page cross-links to this site's own troubleshooting and error-code records for the same brand.

HVACWater heatingGeneratorsAppliancesManufacturer-confirmedCross-verified
Part of Consumer-product troubleshooting by exact model, symptom and code guide

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21 complete records in this directory
CarrierWeek/year, self-verified against Carrier's own warranty rangeTraneYear/week, cross-verified trade conventionRheemWeek/year, direct from Rheem's own contractor articleLennoxYear/month letter, manufacturer-confirmed encodingGoodman, Amana & DaikinYear/month, manufacturer-confirmed encodingYorkTwo eras since 1971, cross-verified trade conventionRheem water heatersMonth/year, direct from Rheem's own pageBradford WhiteYear/month letters, direct from Bradford White's own pageA.O. SmithFour documented eras since the 1970sStateLegacy format confirmed; current format unresolvedGeneracThe serial has no date — use the tag's separate date fieldBriggs & StrattonYear/month/day, direct from Briggs & Stratton's own pageChampion Power EquipmentYear/month, confirmed for pre-2011 engines onlyKohlerRunning numeric index, three eras from 1965–2011WhirlpoolYear letter confirmed 1996–2002; unresolved outside that rangeMaytagShares Whirlpool's system since the 2006 acquisitionKitchenAidShares Whirlpool's system for major appliancesGE AppliancesMonth/year letters, direct from GE's own pageSamsungSources disagree — no computed date publishedLGMonth confirmed; year narrows to a decade onlyKenmoreWho built it, from the model-number prefix

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21 exact answers in Serial Number & Age Lookup by Brand

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Bradford White · Serial number decoder

Decode a Bradford White serial number: find the age

Bradford White's own website publishes the complete year-letter and month-letter tables for its water heaters, including the 20-year repeat cycle and the December 2007 production-number length change.

Open record Briggs & Stratton · Serial number decoder

Decode a Briggs & Stratton standby-generator engine date code

Read the manufacture date from a Briggs & Stratton engine Code without confusing it with the generator’s serial label.

Open record Carrier · Serial number decoder

Decode a Carrier serial number: find the age and manufacture week

Carrier furnaces, air conditioners and heat pumps made since the early 1990s encode the production week and year in the first four digits of the serial number, confirmed against Carrier's own published warranty serial range.

Open record Champion Power Equipment · Serial number decoder

Decode a Champion generator serial number: find the age

Champion's own help center publishes a clear year-then-month rule, but only for engines built before 2011 — current-production decoding could not be confirmed and is stated as a gap, not guessed at.

Open record GE Appliances · Serial number decoder

Decode a GE appliance serial number: find the age

GE's own support page publishes the complete month-letter and year-letter tables directly, including the 12-year repeat cycle and GE's own worked example.

Open record Goodman, Amana & Daikin · Serial number decoder

Decode a Goodman, Amana or Daikin serial number: find the age

Current Goodman, Amana and Daikin residential HVAC equipment uses the simplest format in this group: the first four serial digits are year then month, confirmed by Goodman's own page and an independent trade source.

Open record KitchenAid · Serial number decoder

Decode a KitchenAid major-appliance serial number: find the age

Current KitchenAid major appliances share Whirlpool's own serial system. This page points to the shared rule and explicitly excludes small countertop appliances, which are not confirmed to use the same system.

Open record Kohler · Serial number decoder

Decode a Kohler generator engine serial number: find the age

Kohler used a running numeric index rather than a simple two-digit year, and the index's meaning shifted as the serial number itself grew longer between 1965 and 2011.

Open record Lennox · Serial number decoder

Decode a Lennox serial number: find the age and manufacture month

Lennox confirms its serial numbers carry production information but does not itself publish the digit table; independent HVAC-trade sources converge on plant, then year, then a month letter.

Open record Maytag · Serial number decoder

Decode a Maytag serial number: find the age

Maytag has used Whirlpool's own serial system since Whirlpool's 2006 acquisition. This page points to the shared rule rather than repeating it, and states plainly that pre-2006 Maytag used a separate, unverified system.

Open record Rheem · Serial number decoder

Decode a Rheem HVAC serial number: find the age and manufacture week

Rheem's own contractor-facing article states the rule directly: read the week and year from the two digit pairs that follow the letter in the serial number. This is a different rule than Rheem's water-heater serial numbers.

Open record Rheem, Ruud & Richmond water heaters · Serial number decoder

Decode a Rheem water heater serial number: find the age

Rheem's own official water-heater page states the rule directly: month, then year, then a plant letter. This is the opposite emphasis from the week-then-year rule this site documents for Rheem's HVAC equipment.

Open record Samsung · Serial number decoder

Decode a Samsung appliance serial number: what this page can and can't confirm

Two independent sources agree on where Samsung's date code sits but disagree with each other on the letter-to-year mapping, so this page states the code's position without computing a date from it.

Open record State · Serial number decoder

Decode a State water heater serial number: find the age

State's legacy letter-month format is well confirmed. Its current all-numeric format is not: the independent source documenting it explicitly flags that other guides claim the opposite digit order.

Open record Trane · Serial number decoder

Decode a Trane serial number: find the age and manufacture week

Trane and American Standard equipment made since roughly 2000 encodes year and week in the serial number's leading digits. Trane's own decode article could not be reached during verification, so this reading relies on independent trade cross-checking.

Open record Whirlpool · Serial number decoder

Decode a Whirlpool serial number: find the age and production week

Independent references agree on Whirlpool's serial structure and on the 1996–2002 year letters, but genuinely disagree with each other on the letters used from 2003 onward — this page states the confirmed range and stops there.

Open record York · Serial number decoder

Decode a York serial number: find the age and manufacture month

York, a Johnson Controls brand, changed its serial format around October 2004. Reading the wrong era's rule produces a wrong decade, not just a wrong year — this page covers both, from independent technician references.

Open record A.O. Smith · Serial number decoder

Decode an A.O. Smith water heater serial number: find the age

A.O. Smith has changed its water-heater serial format at least four times. The current format since 2008 reads year-then-week; three older, less certain formats used different orders.

Open record LG · Serial number decoder

Decode an LG appliance serial number: find the month and narrow the decade

An LG serial number starts with one digit for the year and two for the month, so it narrows the manufacture year only to a repeating 10-year cycle; a purchase date or manual date settles the decade.

Open record Kenmore · Who built it

Find out who built your Kenmore appliance from its model number

Kenmore designs and sells appliances that other companies build. The first three digits of the model number, the prefix before the dot, say who built yours, and that decides which fault codes, parts and manuals apply.

Open record Generac · Serial number decoder

Generac serial numbers don't encode the age — here's what does

Generac's own support page confirms the serial number is sequential, not date-coded. The real manufacture date is a separate eight-digit field on the same data tag.

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