How long did your CPAP/APAP last? Did you ever use the warranty?

Hi,

I was wondering how long CPAP/APAP machines last. Here in Canada, I realized sleep clinics let you purchase extended warranty to 5yrs while all the online stores in Canada I have checked out don't offer extended warranty beyond the manufacturer warranty.

My insurance covers a machine only every 5 years and the Resmed APAPs come with 3yrs warranty. I want to be on the safe side.

SecondWindcpap.com is a US company that sells both new and used CPAP machines. I would think they would have some pretty good practical experience in how long CPAP machines actually lost. This is how they answer the question in a FAQ section of their website:

Second Wind CPAP

"How long will my CPAP last?

The average life expectancy of a CPAP or BIPAP machine is approximately 20,000 hours, or about seven to eight years full time use. That said, many times, if properly cared for, these devices will last much longer. Many properly maintained machines will last upwards of 50,000 hours."

For personal experience my wife's machine is about 3 1/2 years old. It is a S9 ResMed and currently has 12,014 hours on it. It is working fine, and I have no reason to believe at this point that it will not last at least 20,000 hours. Neither of us has insurance so we will just replace it when it needs to be. Many years ago I came to the conclusion that it does not make sense to buy extended warranty, so I never buy it on anything. I feel I am way ahead of the game and if something does fail early, but off warranty, I am self insured. i.e. I eat the cost.

Also keep in mind that some parts are replaceable on a CPAP so there may also be the option of repairing it at a modest cost. Perhaps your insurance company covers replacement masks and parts?

Hope that helps some,

Thank you very much. I guess the additional warranties are only ways to play with customers' fears and insurance coverage.

I forgot to add in my original response that I have used the ResMed warranty. I bought a 12 V DC to 24 V DC power adapter for my wife's S9 CPAP so we could run it from the 12 volt system in our RV. It worked fine for about 4 nights and then started going off and on during the night. I called CPAPOutlet.ca where I bought it and they immediately sent me out a replacement, along with a prepaid shipping label to return the defective one. I suspect the problem was a bad connection in the molded plug -- a manufacturing defect. Warranty is useful for those infant mortality type of failures.

And since you originally asked, I was looking at some ResMed information and I see that they claim the design life of their CPAP machines is 5 years. The warranty however is 3 years as you know.

Thank you! Which online stores can you recommend? You mentioned CPAPoutlet; however since it is an outlet is there a risk to run into refurbished machines?

I have not had the best of luck with machines. My very first machine a Resmed R9 (something along those lines) was a dud. I was struggling really hard with it to find that it was giving pressures far above and beyond what I needed. They took it back and gave me another. I used that one for about 9-10 months (not often in the last month) and gave up because of chronic sinus infections. About 18 months later I decided to start using it again and after 2 weeks it stopped working. Would give sudden extreme bursts of high pressure to the point I couldn't breath when it happened. Took it back to the office I got it from and they said it wasn't worth sending out to fix because it would take weeks and no guarantees so they replaced it. Insurance covered the new one and I didn't do anything with the old one.

Not sure where you are at with your machine purchase, but I see that Sleep Yeti has a Black Friday sale (Nov 23-26) of 15% off the complete order. That would make the AirSense 10 AutoSet with a ClimateLine hose about $782. They are in Calgary so Canada Post shipping from there would be less likely to be affected by the strike.

I had my first one for around 5 1/2 yrs. I am eligible for a new one every five years under my medical coverage and it just so happened I had a Philips Dream station that was under recall so instead of waiting on them I decided to pursue getting a completely new machine. I got my current one back around October 2021 or so