# Anyone got an AGA?



## Proto (10 Jun 2020)

Our new house has an ancient (age unknown but pre 1974) oil fired AGA stove. Our first thoughts that we’d take it out and put an electric range cooker in its place but man came on Monday to service and commission it and were beginning to think it’s rather good. Different but good. Get rid of the electric kettle and toaster, learn to cook in a different way.

Anyone else got one? Handy hints and tips? Bread making possible?


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## Levo-Lon (10 Jun 2020)

No ,but there wonderful things.
Nan had one in her old farm cottage.
Bit of faffing but give it a fo


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## tom73 (10 Jun 2020)

Don't get rid I don't have one but have used them in holiday lets. They are not too hard to work out plenty of stuff on the net as to which oven to use. Once you get your head round it they are fab. So easy really and well worth a go.


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## Proto (10 Jun 2020)

By the way, it’s dark blue, nice colour, but for £2500 🙀 you can have them re-enamelled in the colour of your choice.


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## Salar (10 Jun 2020)

Make sure it's efficient. We had one years ago in a rental farmhouse and it used to drink oil.


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## Proto (10 Jun 2020)

Salar said:


> Make sure it's efficient. We had one years ago in a rental farmhouse and it used to drink oil.



yep, it will drink oil. I was told to expect 40 litres a week, but at current price of 20p a litre, not so serious.


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## Ian H (10 Jun 2020)

Yup. Ours came with the house. It's gas-fired. We wouldn't have installed one but, you know. 

It's worth getting a dedicated cookbook as you will need a very different technique for cooking. Much more is done in the oven, the top part of which you can use like a grill. 

And yes, it bakes a fine loaf.


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## Slioch (10 Jun 2020)

Haven't got one myself, but trendy friends dahn sarf had one installed a few years back.
Their guest bedroom is above the kitchen, and it was flippin roasting in the summer. It's not something you can just turn on and off.


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## Ridgeway (10 Jun 2020)

We've been cooking on Aga's and Rayburns for about 30yrs i guess now, used oil, gas and now wood. A few comments:

Make sure you have a 2nd cooker, gas or electric (ie a regular oven and hot plate) Aga's and Rayburns are "always on" so in summer you will need an alternative method of cooking
Defiantly get some decent books, Carol Bowen is excellent as are Mary Berry's old books (nearer ones are slightly naff)
DEFINATELY (I mean 100% do) get decent long oven gloves, Aga type go up your forearm, if you don't you'll have brand marks on your inside wrists...
You need to think ahead, remember an Aga or Rayburn can take 1-2hrs to get to hotter temperatures os say +180, even more for roasting at +200º
Use Astonish it's the best cleaner of enamel surfaces and will last years
Yes it will drink oil, perhaps £200-300 a month ? they are super inefficient in that respect (Rayburns are typically better than Aga's in that)
Although we've had gas, oil and wood we wouldn't want to run anything other than wood now, the cheapest fuel but also the trickiest to manage 
Baking is just a pleasure and you'll learn to really enjoy it, you'll hopefully get the bug !
Keep your leccy kettle for summer, you'll need it unless you want to melt in your kitchen

If you do want to re-enamel the Aga i'm sure you can get it done for much less, i bought a completely refurbished Rayburn for less than that only 5yrs ago, dragged it across Europe in the back of a Landy and it now sits in our kitchen, it's run from about Nov - March/April.

Good luck and enjoy it (certainly would take it out)


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## Proto (10 Jun 2020)

Fellow who serviced it told us to keep hot oven at a constant 240°C and leave it alone. We‘ll Get settled with it then maybe experiment.

Running cost, at current oil prices should be about £30 per month, if so, we can live with that. Intend running it 365 days a year!!

We have a 2 ring ceramic hob next to the Aga, but that might become redundant. We've already ditched the electric kettle and toaster.


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## tom73 (10 Jun 2020)

Aga toast .... is fab


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## Ian H (10 Jun 2020)

We had the AIMS sytem installed, which allows us to programme the temperature for cooking times and holidays. So during the day it is much cooler. I think AIMS might be obsolete now, dunno if anything has replaced it. 
Having a big airy kitchen, we run it all year round.


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## Ridgeway (10 Jun 2020)

£30 a month

i know oil prices have dropped but that ain't going to happen, that's £360 a year. Be prepared for more.

Running it 365 is the right way to do it do keep in mind it's like leaving a 4kw wood burner on in your kitchen during the summer, of course possible but most people do switch them off for summer months and use a back up method.

IMO 240º is way too hot, but i have only been cooking on them since 1992 keep the slider in the middle and you'll be lucky to get 200º in the roasting oven and perhaps 150 in the baking oven.


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## Proto (10 Jun 2020)

Ridgeway said:


> £30 a month
> 
> i know oil prices have dropped but that ain't going to happen, that's £360 a year. Be prepared for more.
> 
> ...



Slider? We’ve got an oil flow control knob.


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## Proto (10 Jun 2020)

tom73 said:


> Aga toast .... is fab



certainly is. Chicken and mayo toastie for lunch. Excellent.


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## Globalti (10 Jun 2020)

Yes we have a gas AGA in British Racing Green. Fantastic thing and yes you can turn them on and off as the weather changes. They take a few hours to cool down or warm up. The constant flow up the flue keeps the kitchen well ventilated and dry. 

You do also need a summer hob and oven for when the AGA is turned off.


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## numbnuts (10 Jun 2020)

We had one in the 60s burnt coke at the time, a few years later had it converted to oil, and the guy that did it trained me on how to do a full service on it, very easy to do, but very dusty if you have to pull out the burning chamber as ours was full of finely crushed sea shells.
p.s we never turned ours off 24/7/356


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## Gunk (10 Jun 2020)

I love these posts, next one will be "has anyone got an Orangery"


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## Proto (10 Jun 2020)

Gunk said:


> I love these posts, next one will be "has anyone got an Orangery"



I was going to post something about the difficulty these days of getting decent staff.


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## Drago (10 Jun 2020)

My place in Voe has a Rayburn. I'd have thought bread making would be eminently possible. I used to run mine on peat or less often wood. It would run on coal tool, but supplies weren't so easy to come by.

I'm no great cook myself, so cant really give a great insight into the cooking attributes of cast iron indirect heating stoves. On the plus side mine would pretty much heat the entire house over winter.

I understand Agas can heat your water too?


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## Ridgeway (10 Jun 2020)

Drago said:


> My place in Voe has a Rayburn. I'd have thought bread making would be eminently possible. I used to run mine on peat or less often wood. It would run on coal tool, but supplies weren't so easy to come by.
> 
> I'm no great cook myself, so cant really give a great insight into the cooking attributes of cast iron indirect heating stoves. On the plus side mine would pretty much heat the entire house over winter.
> 
> I understand Agas can heat your water too?



Both Agas and Rayburns can heat radiators and DHW, Rayburns usually via a back boiler (old models) but as you say they’ll certainly heat a decent sized area, we use ours in between using the central heating during colder evenings in Spring and Autumn


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## the snail (10 Jun 2020)

Nice to cook on, great when working right. But pretty inefficient, expensive to run, and bad for the enviroment. A friend of mine has one. The oil burner is pretty basic, over time the insides have distorted (or perhaps were wonky to start with) so it's difficult to get the oil level right in the burner, over time it tends to soot up, and smoke and leak oil. Stinky old thing. Yuk.


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## slowmotion (10 Jun 2020)

We had one when I was a kid. My job was to shovel in a hod of coke twice a day and riddle the ashes out (You were lucky!). We had no central heating but in made the kitchen really cosy and it was the place in which we all congregated. As for cooking, it was great for stews, roasts and making toast, but pretty useless for anything else. It suited my mother down to the ground. She had zero interest in cooking apart from the weekly roast.


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## Notafettler (13 Jun 2020)

Not read rest of posts
Get rid, oil cookers are astonishingly expensive to run. Someone told me they burnt more than his centrally heating. His wife only used it when doing a big cook. 
I assume no natural gas available?
LPG large orange bottle generally last a year. Don't buy the fittings for two bottles which change the bottles automatically when one is empty They often change when there is still gas in. I know of someone who delivers them and sells on the half empty ones. 
LPG is for cooking and oil is for heating unless





You already have LPG heating and tank.
Also avoid calor. Charge for bottle rental and gas more expensive. Local energas bloke didn't charge me rental and gave me the different connector. Cheaper gas as well
In this case talking about blue bottles for greenhouse heater.


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## Notafettler (13 Jun 2020)

PS nobody will nick my gas!


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## Notafettler (14 Jun 2020)

Just remembered I did have an AGA years ago. Used wood or coal on it. It heated the water but the hot water tank was about 10 foot above it. Always boiling the water overflow went into alleyway. Neighbour avoided using it when we burning coal. Alleyway that is.


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