Where do I find the model number and rating plate on an appliance?

Almost every appliance conversation you will ever have — a spare part, a warranty claim, a recall check, an engineer booking, a manual download — starts with the model number, and almost every one of them stalls because it cannot be found or because only half of it was given. The commercial name on the front of the machine is not it. The plate carries several numbers that look equally official, and only one or two of them are what anyone actually wants.

What you'll need

• A torch
• A phone, to photograph the plate
• A mirror, for plates on the back of a built-in appliance (optional)

Step by step

1. Look inside the door first on anything with a door.Washing machines and washer-dryers: the rim inside the porthole, or the frame around it. Dishwashers: the edge of the inner door panel, visible when the door is open. Tumble dryers: inside the door or in the filter recess. Ovens: the frame the door closes against, on one side. This is where the plate is on the great majority of appliances.
2. Look inside the cabinet on cooling appliances.Fridges and freezers put the plate on an inner side wall, on the ceiling of the compartment, or behind or under the salad drawer. Some fridge-freezers have it low on the inside of the fridge section. It is almost never on the outside of a modern one.
3. Look underneath on small appliances.Kettles, toasters, microwaves, air fryers, food processors, vacuum cleaners, dehumidifiers and air purifiers nearly all carry the plate on the base. On a vacuum it is often on the body under the bin, and on a dehumidifier it is on the back or the base.
4. Look at the back for the second plate.Many machines have a plate on the rear panel as well, and it sometimes carries more detail than the front one. On a freestanding machine you can pull it out; on an integrated one this is where a phone camera on a selfie setting, pushed into the gap, earns its keep.
5. Identify the model number specifically.It is usually prefixed Mod., Model, Type or Modello, and it is an alphanumeric string. It is not the commercial name on the front of the machine, and it is not the barcode. If there is a slash or a space followed by two or three digits, those are part of it.
6. Include the version or index code after the slash.This is the field people leave off and it matters. Two machines with the same base model number but different suffixes can have different pumps, seals, boards or drums. A parts supplier asked for the model number without it will either guess or send the wrong part.
7. Note the product number and the serial number too.Some manufacturer groups use a purely numeric product number, often labelled PNC or Prod. No., which is what their parts system actually keys on. The serial number is unique to your machine, generally encodes the build week and year, and is what a recall check and a warranty claim ask for.
8. Read the electrical figures while you are there.Voltage and frequency, and the power rating in watts or kilowatts. The wattage is what you use for a running-cost calculation and for choosing a plug fuse. If only amps are given, multiply by 230 for an approximate wattage.
9. Photograph the whole plate, not just the number.One clear photograph with the torch on captures every field including the ones you did not think you needed. Keep it in an album or a note with the appliance name, and add a photograph of the receipt to the same place.
10. Do it before an integrated appliance is built in.The plate on a built-under oven or an integrated dishwasher becomes very hard to reach and often unreadable once it is fitted, and the print fades with heat over the years. Five minutes on installation day saves a genuinely awkward afternoon later.

Tips

• A phone on the front camera, pushed into the gap behind a machine with the torch on, reads a plate no mirror will reach.
• Transcribe the model number carefully. Zero and the letter O, one and the letter I, and five and S are the characters that cause failed parts searches.
• If the plate has faded to nothing, the manual, the original receipt, the delivery note or an old warranty registration often still carries the model number.
• Keep the photographs of every appliance plate in one album on your phone. It turns every future parts, recall or engineer conversation into a thirty-second job.

Common mistakes

• Giving the commercial name instead of the model number — One marketing name covers many production versions with different internals. A parts supplier cannot work from it and will ask again.
• Leaving off the digits after the slash — That suffix is the version or index code and it frequently determines which part fits. It is the single most common cause of the wrong part arriving.
• Only recording it after the appliance has failed — On an integrated machine the plate is often unreachable once fitted, and by then you need the number to book the engineer who would move it.

Questions people ask