To get rid of an AGA

[Cookiedough123]

Can someone tell me whether they would swap an AGA for a range cooker for example..

We are possibly buying a house with an AGA. It's run on gas. Are they worth it? Apparently the gas bill is between 125-200 a month! These are people who have their heating on a lot though.. I am a bit more scrimpy. I am keen to keep but BF wants to get rid.

Can I have thoughts on an AGA please

An ex's parents had an Aga. Every summer they had to close it down for servicing etc as it heated the house. It took several days to cool down, then got serviced then needed heating up again.
The main pipe from the Aga that ran upwards caused the dividing wall , between the kitchen and living room, to buckle... hence no wallpaper . Paint on the walls cracked every year.

Everyone saying it can be used in lieu of a tumble drier, what do you mean? Do you hang your clothes in front of or above it?

So you have clean laundry in the kitchen?

Doesn’t it end up smelling of food?

And what if you need to cook and dry clothes at the same time?

We got rid when we moved in. I work full time and long hours and it just wasn't going to work for us. I left too early to put slow cooker things in (they'd be cremated apparently) and got back too late to start cooking as apparently they're slow. It was also as old as Methuselah and we ended up breaking it up and selling for scrap as no one would touch it

My husband came home from a visit to England without me and was raving about this thing called an AGA. Frankly, it sounded crazy to me unless you had no central heating. Also wasteful of carbon based fuel.

You never see one where I live.

I agree, go for induction. Not a regular smooth top electric or halogen. Induction.

I had a Stanley SuperStar range, but it was oil and very greedy, had to replace it as it sprang a terminal leak
I do still miss it even though the new boiler has been in two years and is yet to use 50% of the oil that Stanley would have used in under a year!

Washing...I would fold mine off the line, possibly not completely dry, and lay it on racks over the hot plate covers....you get good at folding, and then there is no ironing.

For kettles you have a filled kettle on the kettle plate (presume there is similar on an aga) and when you want to boil it, you briefly swap it to the hot hotplate and bingo...boiling water very quickly.

yes to cooking in the oven not on the oven, get heavy based pans with metal handles and lids that will go in the oven

DS1 really missed it when he moved out, kept forgetting to actually put on the electric oven as he was used to just putting stuff in, and he felt there was no challenge to cooking, no judging the right shelf, no turning the tray to get even browning...No Soul!

I still miss hearing it fire up!

I installed a gas fired aga and it reduced our gas usage, because we don't have to turn the heating on much. It heats our whole downstairs for most of the year (apart from proper winter). Our power bill (gas and electric) is £100 a month, despite us working from home and living right on the North Sea in Scotland. It's a 3 bedroom terrace, so not big, but we love our aga and it doesn't cost us extra. We do use it a lot for drying/pressing washing, and many other purposes, such as drying wet coats/shoes.

I love my rayburn. It looks beautiful and stores my fruit and veg as a mini pantry. Wouldn't use the thing for cooking though too much hassle.

My grandma had a yellow one in her farmhouse, it was ancient but it was never off, it also heated up the water for the house. They obviously lived very rurally and it was oil powered.
I have lovely memories of sitting in the rocking chair next to it and heating up my feet on the side of it
She also had a regular electric oven for cooking on as well.

Rayburns were yellow and we had one growing up.

Our aga is wonderful. Couldn't imagine a home without one now it's weird!

We had one when I was growing up. It dried the washing, heated the house and the the hot water. The people who bought the house ripped it out. 😒

My granny had to dry the laundry over the Rayburn, but she had no choice - and it was also her only source of heat and hot water. It's beyond me why anyone who can afford an Aga these days would choose to faff around with drying the laundry in the kitchen.

It’s not a faff. If you have a pulley above it the washing dries really quickly. It saves having a tumble drier.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

My granny had to dry the laundry over the Rayburn, but she had no choice - and it was also her only source of heat and hot water. It's beyond me why anyone who can afford an Aga these days would choose to faff around with drying the laundry in the kitchen.

How else would you dry it? It rains a lot in the UK?

Or do you mean they would send there laundry out to be cleaned? Surely no-one does that?

Keep it. We have a four oven oil one and it is fab. It was particularly good during lock down when working from home and the kitchen/ family room was lovely and warm all the time.
We turn ours off May to September and I really miss it.

Personally I use a Lakeland dryer @MauveMagnolia. Costs 5p per hour and I don't have wet washing all over my kitchen.

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

Personally I use a Lakeland dryer *@MauveMagnolia*. Costs 5p per hour and I don't have wet washing all over my kitchen.

So where do you have wet washing? Where does the heated dryer go? You need a ventilated room with solid flooring and heating? Do you have a drying room?

I am pretty sure that an Aga dries it quick than a heated dryer?

I think they are a joy for certain lifestyles. We love ours - but turn it on and off if we are away, in the summer etc. We have an alternative stove for summer.
For the other three seasons, it earns its place. Cooking, drying clothes and shoes, heating half the house, stopping pans rusting, saving ironing, airing things, sterilising preserving jars, warming plates, during fruit or herbs and giving a focus and welcome to the kitchen. It’s lovely but not especially cheap to run. Ours is on a timer, so cheaper than most but still not a budget option. They are also large and take up a lot of space,
If you like a quick stir fry and use a tumbler drier, they may not suit. If you’ve a larger family or entertain a lot and like slow cooking, they are perfect.

@3luckystars

I can’t believe they cost that much to run!! That’s shocking! I pulled into a petrol station once and the car in front of me had put €100+ into their car I just don’t know how people afford to spend that much on fuel. I could not pay that much for it to go up in smoke, it’s like burning money (to me anyway, I am not wealthy though so feel free to ignore my opinion) I don’t see the attraction of them, except the fun we had spitting on my grandparents one as children and watching it roll off and disappear, but that’s not worth €150 a week though. Anyway, good luck with it whatever you decide.

Eh? My car has a 95ltr tank, so it's always going to cost more than £100 to fill it. Different cars have different fuel tank capacities. It's no different to filling a 50ltr tank twice

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

Personally I use a Lakeland dryer *@MauveMagnolia*. Costs 5p per hour and I don't have wet washing all over my kitchen.

No but you have wet washing on the drier steaming up the room which is a lot more hassle. I know as I have one. They are useless and a lot more hassle than a pulley .

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow

My granny had to dry the laundry over the Rayburn, but she had no choice - and it was also her only source of heat and hot water. It's beyond me why anyone who can afford an Aga these days would choose to faff around with drying the laundry in the kitchen.

We do send laundry out - bedding, shirts and towels. I don’t send many other clothes out to the commercial laundry though. If the children are home they may need laundry turned around quickly and not have time to wait for the laundry to be collected and returned.

It’s not a faff at all. A simple A frame stand above the Aga overnight. If there was more, I’d use the Sheila but generally with two of us, the Aga top aired is sufficient.

We had one which we loved but we had another cooker and turned it off in the summer. We moved and haven't had another and can't say I have missed it . I would try it and see how you feel about it. They are lovely to look at. I was disappointed the heat never seemed to circulate around the house much in winter though.

We never has a hairdryer growing up- dried our hair over the aga.

And we had a lamb in the warming oven once.

I have a 4 oven oil fired AGA. I bought the house because of it. We all love it. We use it for cooking, clothes drying and comfort. DH in particular loves it and feels he can cook on it. It is too hot for a hot summer so we have a scrappy 2nd electric cooker for the hot bit of the summer.

But AGA is going in a month's time. We've gone electric with the car and I feel guilty about the huge oil tank in the garden, expensive yes, but also environmentally unsound. So AGA is going and Everhot (electric heat storage range cooker) is coming. We are replacing our ancient kitchen at the same time.

Apparently the Everett emits less heat, is powered with electricity so we can choose renewable, has a part induction hob and is generally much more eco and flexible. Here's hoping. Bet I'll still the AGA though.

Chill, Aga-lovers. I'm not coming to take away your ridiculous lumps of cast-iron.

It's just personal preference. I spent a decade with no choice but to dry my laundry in the room where I lived, cooked and slept. I'm damned if I'm going to live like that, now that I have an option. If you want to live with laundry all over your kitchen, that's your choice.