Appliance Inspection Checklist for Every Unit Turnover

At every turnover, run each appliance through a full cycle, inspect the parts that wear (gaskets, hoses, burners, hinges, racks), and photograph the rating plate and the condition. Then sort what you find into three piles: fix before move-in, flag for the budget, and note for the file. This apartment turnover appliance checklist covers what to check on each one.

A vacant unit is the cheapest time to do this. Nobody has to be home, there's no access window to arrange, and a problem you find now is a repair you schedule instead of a tenant call in the first week of the lease.

Before you start

Do the appliance check early in the vacancy, not the day before the move-in. If something needs a part, you want the time for it to arrive.

Bring a flashlight, two appliance thermometers (one for the fridge, one for the freezer), an oven thermometer, a sheet of paper, and a phone for photos. Pull up the unit's repair history if you keep one, so you know which appliance has already been worked on. Then give it about an hour: the dishwasher cycle is the slow part, so start it first and do the rest while it runs.

Refrigerator

Plug it in and set it to the middle setting as soon as you arrive. It needs time to reach temperature.

• Thermometers in both sections. By the end of the visit, the fridge should be heading toward 40°F or below and the freezer toward 0°F, the targets the FDA gives. A fridge that started warm may need longer; recheck the next day if you're unsure.
• Door gaskets: close the door on a sheet of paper at several points and pull. If it slides out easily, the gasket isn't sealing.
• Doors close on their own and don't sag. Kids hanging on a freezer door bend the hinge.
• Shelves, crisper drawers and door bins are all there and not cracked. Missing bins are one of the most common move-out casualties.
• Coils clean. If they're dusty, clean them now; our note on condenser coil cleaning has the ten-minute method.
• Ice maker, if there is one: water line not kinked or dripping, no water on the floor behind the unit.
• Smell. A sour smell that survives cleaning usually lives in the drain pan or the insulation, and it's worth a technician's look.

Range and oven

Every burner should catch within a few seconds and burn with a steady blue flame. Then check the oven, both bake and broil, with an oven thermometer on the middle rack.

• Each burner lights cleanly, with no long clicking and no tall yellow flames.
• Oven reaches the set temperature in a reasonable time and holds it close to the dial or display.
• Oven door closes flat, the gasket is intact, and the hinges aren't loose.
• All knobs present and not cracked. Without a knob, the next tenant ends up turning the valve stem with pliers.
• The range is held by its anti-tip bracket. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has long urged that freestanding ranges be installed with one. Ranges get pulled out for cleaning at move-out and pushed back without reengaging it. The installation instructions show how to confirm it; on many models the bracket hooks over a rear leg.
• Hood or exhaust fan runs on every speed, and the grease filter is clean or replaced.

Two more items for gas ranges. If anyone smells gas, stop and treat it as an emergency, not a checklist item. And if the incoming household has a child under six, NYC requires owners of multiple dwellings to provide stove knob covers or safety knobs for gas stoves (Local Law 117 of 2018, amended by Local Law 44 of 2022); see HPD's stove knob cover page for the details and the annual notice. Any tenant can also request them. Turnover is a good moment to ask. This is general information, not legal advice.

Dishwasher and disposal

Run the dishwasher through a full normal cycle while you do everything else. It's the appliance most likely to hide a slow leak.

• No water on the floor or in the cabinet under the sink during or after the cycle.
• Water fully drains at the end. Standing water in the tub usually means a clogged filter or a drain problem.
• Filter at the bottom of the tub pulled and rinsed.
• Door gasket intact, and the door latches without force.
• Spray arms spin freely and their holes aren't blocked.
• Racks rolling smoothly, with no rust on the tines. Rust spreads onto dishes, and a new tenant will call about it.

Run the disposal with cold water. It should spin up quickly and run without grinding or a hard hum. Check under the sink for drips at the sink flange and the dishwasher drain connection. If the disposal hums without turning, it's jammed: power off, free it with the hex wrench underneath, then reset. If it jams again, it goes on the work order.

Washer and dryer, if the unit has them

Run a short wash cycle, empty, and watch the spin. The washer should drain completely and shouldn't walk across the floor. Look at the fill hoses for bulges or cracks and at the floor behind the machine for old water stains.

For the dryer, run it on heat for ten minutes. It should get warm, and you should feel air coming out of the outside vent. Clean the lint screen and the housing under it. If the vent hasn't been cleaned in the past year, schedule it now, while nobody has to be home; our note on dryer vent cleaning covers intervals and what a proper cleaning includes.

What to photograph and record

Photograph the rating plate of every appliance while the unit is empty. It carries the model and serial number, and the serial often encodes the manufacture date. You'll never have easier access to it.

Then take condition photos: the front of each appliance, the inside of the fridge and oven, the dishwasher tub and racks, the cooktop surface, and anything damaged. Date them in the file. Those photos protect you twice. They set the baseline for the next move-out, so a cracked cooktop or a missing drawer can be compared against how the unit was delivered; our note on telling tenant damage from normal wear explains what holds up. And they give the next technician the model number before the visit, which can save a trip.

Record it all in one place per unit: appliance, brand, model, serial, approximate install or manufacture date, and what you found.

Fix now, flag for budget, or note for the file

Not everything you find needs fixing before the keys change hands. Sort each item by whether the new tenant would call about it in the first month.

The budget pile is where the age data helps. An old refrigerator that works today may be cheaper to replace now, during the vacancy, than after it fails with a tenant's groceries inside.

What to do next

Print the lists above, give the super an hour per unit early in the vacancy, and send the fix-now pile out right away so parts have time to arrive. For anything on that pile, open a work order for the unit with the rating-plate photo attached, and we'll quote it before any work starts. Our range and oven repair page covers the burner and ignition faults that turn up most at turnover.