I want and AGA - please tell me about yours..new or re-conditioned?

[ChacunaSonGout]

I sooooooooo want one and need one as cooking for 8 daily on a 1972 monstrosity !

Went to look at local showroom and was swooooooning by 5 minutes in!

I would love new but re conditioned is obviously more economical but is there a downside?

Do you love yours - any advice DO tell!

[nowirehangers]

not sure I understand, do you have one already?
We inherited one with our house it's about a million years old, I wasn't pleased at the idea of learnign to cook on one but now I adore it and can't imagine life without it, a bit like the dcs
They cost a fortune to run, I read as much as twenty pounds a week so that is the major downside. To get round that we don't have an electric kettle or toaster use the aga versions instead, nor do we have a tumble dryer. Plus the kitchen can get very hot in summer - but that's not been a problem this year . Some people have hobs as well as agas and turn theirs off in summer but we don't have the space for that and I think it's a mildly daft idea. You can get fancy new ones that turn on and off at different times of day etc but I imagine they are super pricey.

[ChacunaSonGout]

Thankyou nowirehangers and i love your name

do you use a creel over the aga to dry clothes? (heart aches at the thought!)

[RubySlippers]

i have a rangemaster whcih is part of the AGA brand

it is basically a range cooker with 5 burners, a gas and electric oven

they are a lot cheaper than an AGA to buy although i inherited this when i bought my house

i love it and wouldn't be without it

[MorocconOil]

Got a gas-fired one that we use for cooking only. It does heat the kitchen and open plan dining/sitting room as well. It's hot in summer and we have to use a fan to cool the room.

I love it, and cooking is more like a hobby than a chore. Food tastes so much better when cooked on the Aga, than when I cooked with a conventional oven.

It's not economical or ecological and DH keeps threatening to trade it in for a range. Over my dead body.

[ChacunaSonGout]

mimzan - did you inherit it or install yourselves?

[ingles2]

we have an electric AGA which I adore but is practically bankrupting us at the mo... It works like a night storage heater on economy seven. Is yours wood burning, oil or gas?
We bought this new and it cost
£15....(K) When we were stupid and moved from London to Country for a buntylicious life. Would buy reconditioned every time now.
From what I've discovered over the years, there are only a couple of components in an AGA, which can be replaced quite easily,...so not much to them really.

[Bobbiewickham]

I've got an electric one, that came with AIMS free ( the gadget that you can use to turn it down in summer) but we haven't worked out how to use it yet.

Love, love, love the aga. Love cooking on it, and the best bit is, dh now loves cooking, as he was never v good at timings, but on an aga you can keep everything warm.

His sunday lunches rock!

Also v good for drying out history books when water bottles have leaked, as we discovered this afternoon

[kitsmummy]

Do have a look at the RAngemaster Elan. As someone said, part of Aga and they're designed to look quite like an aga, eg they've got an an old dial thing on teh front of them, but if you really want an Aga i'm guessing this probably won't push your buttons.

[willthisdo]

We also inherited our AGA when we bought the house. Have a lovely red 4 oven.

Overall I adore it but it does have its negatives. Our kitchen is very warm and we have no other method of cooking so its on all year round (although that's been very welcome this year)

Major thing is cost!Ours is run on gas, and is the only thing on gas in the house as the central heating is oil.When we moved in I phoned our gas supplier to set up direct debits, they wanted to put us on the average rate for a family of 4. I agreed but explained that it was simply for the AGA but would give it 6 months and we could do some more meter readings and review - expecting us to be in loads of credit. After 6 months we were £14 in debit.

So it basically costs the same amount to run as a family of 4 would normally spend on all of their gas

Plus servicing is in the region of £100 a year.

All that said - I wouldn't be without it now and it will be a requirement if we move again just have to convince DH

[FiveGoMadInDorset]

I love my AGA but it has been on holiday since the end of March, it is oil fired and on the whole time, and only does cooking and hot water, with that and heating on (for 5 hours a day we were getting through 1000 litres of oil every 6 weeks which equates to £100 per week, since then we have got through 500 in 2 months, it will be going back on at end of November (we are away before then) but at the moment struggling to justify the money. We are lucky in that we have a kitchen big enough to accommodate a Rangemaster as well.

[FiveGoMadInDorset]

If you want something like that look at Stanley Ranges, basically they are your boiler for the house that you can also cook on.

[WideWebWitch]

God there are LOAD of downsides! long ago rant

[ingles2]

I know jajas
I must have had a few screw loose in those days...
Still wouldn't be without it though.

[MorocconOil]

Our Aga was inherited when we bought the house.

Waswondering- I meant it was not ecological because it is a gas guzzler.

[CissyCharlton]

I have a three oven AGA. I love it, love it, love it. We don't need a radiator in the kitchen because of the heat and DS2's bedroom which is above the kitchen is always toasty warm. It does all of my drying too.

We were warned off reconditioned AGAs by a number of people and thank God we listened. My friend has a reconditioned AGA and it's been nothing but trouble and is costing her a fortune through lost heat. If you can afford it, buy new and consider a three oven version.

[Millarkie]

We have a 2 oven electric Aga which charges up overnight on economy 7 tariff. It was bought by the previous owners of our house as 'reconditioned' but it is in fact a Mk III top on top of a Mk I base and contained the original heating elements (ie. was a bodge job although looked good from the outside). We have paid £500 to replace all of the elements and are hoping that that will keep it running for some time. (As Ingles said - there aren't a lot of parts to an Aga).
Even sorting out the botched reconditioning it was a lot cheaper than a new Aga would have been though.

[MorocconOil]

How do people dry all their washing on the Aga?
Just wondering if I am missing something, as I find it a palaver to dry clothes on it.

[BodenGroupie]

Often see some good Agas on eBay - I keep lurking but our gas bill is scary enough without one.

[othersideofthefence]

We had a 2 oven AGA in our last house, in our new house we have an ESSE (DH calls it a poor mans' AGA).
It's oil fired and I love it just as much as the AGA (maybe a bit more as the AGA was solid fuel)

I love the fact you never have to wait for the oven to heat - it encourages me to cook a lot more than in my pre-AGA/ESSE life

Another bonus is that I never ever iron - just fold and leave things in a pile on the lids for half an hour (although when I was trying to convice a friend not to rip the AGA out of the kitchen in her new house she said that made it the most expensive iron in the world )

There have been a couple of AGAs/Rayburns on my local freecycle - it might be worth looking there

[CissyCharlton]

Get one of those radiator dryers (they are really cheap) and hang it on the rail.

[MorocconOil]

Great idea Cissy- Good excuse for a trip to Lakeland.

[othersideofthefence]

Ooooh - forgot to say, the man who services ours says that with AGA the reconditioned models are actually better than the new.

I think his theory is that there isn't a lot to go wrong with them and the old ones have better build quality.

I have to admit if money were no object I would want a 4 oven in duck egg blue - I can't imagine that I would find a 2nd hand one so I would have to buy new!