Aga oven

[Ilovecashews]

Posting here for traffic.

I’m buying a house with an aga oven. The house needs full restoring, so I’m wondering whether to get rid of it or not.
Can I ask for advice/suggestions/experiences? I have no idea whether it’s a good one to have or not…

thanks a lot

I have one and love it. It's a different way of cooking. Mostly in the oven. It heats my kitchen and hall (backs onto hall) dries my clothes. I bake and cook a lot though and it's expensive.

I grew up with one so I wanted this. I can understand people not getting the idea of them though. Getting it serviced is a pain but at most an annual event

I have a back up cooker but rarely use it.
I'm on Team Keep it!

It depends on your lifestyle. If everyone is out most days then get rid of it. If you are likely to be home based eg if you are sahm, retired or work from home then it can be a nice source of warmth in the kitchen if that's where people spend their time. Some people switch them off in the summer and use other cooking sources. I think they are expensive to run

The coolest oven is good for baby lambs ( very useful??) and you can warm up pottery jugs of milk on top

I cook all the time and I’m at home often, though logistically I don’t know how it will be in this house. I’ve heard that they are expensive to run but also that you can turn them into electric ovens? They are beautiful to look at but I can’t mess up my meals as I have a family to feed.
(Don’t eat lamb!)

thank you

I’d say get rid of it , but that’s because the one we had in our current house was oil fired , cost an absolute fortune to run ( needed servicing twice a year at £100 a time ) drank oil at speed , it also did the heating and hot water ( and basically boiled the water in the tank , there’s no thermostat , it just keeps heating up )

In our previous house ( with the previous Aga ) we had it converted to electricity, but it cost £50 & a week and that was about 4 years ago

I’m at home all the time ( retired ) and cook a lot and much prefer my induction hob and double electric oven

( it’s not to cook baby lambs , but to keep the baby poorly lambs warm when the mum sheep can’t )

We had one before we moved. Personally unless you have a lot of spare ££ I would get rid as our gas bill was huge! Before we moved we had been looking at swapping with a range cooker. The whole point of them is ideally to get stuff started on the hot plates and then move into the ovens to finish cooking. The hot plates reduce your oven heat so much so you want them closed ideally so your ovens run to temperature. We also turned ours off in summer so if you did that you would need another oven anyway. There are some groups on Facebook it would be worth joining. The aga toast is amazing. Everyone says it reduces your need for an oven, microwave, kettle and drier but now we have no AGA we don’t miss it!

I love them but they cost £££ to run and the one that was in my house was positioned so that the heat would have gone straight out of the window rather than warming the whole house, because of the way the kitchen was built on at the back. If you can make the sums add up they are lovely.

My mother in law has had one for the 30 years I have known dh.
You could not pay me to take it.

We had one in my childhood home, and no other cooking device, so I had no idea how to use a normal oven or hob until I moved out at 18. It was great to cook on, and at one time the only source of heat in the house, but I can't imagine they're at all efficient or cheap to run these days. Sell it.

I grew up with one and also had no idea how to use a normal oven when I moved out! Nor had I worked an electric kettle. 🙄
The Aga heated the house, made beautiful bread and porridge etc. Small clothes got dried on the closed hot plates. It was welcoming and homey. I'd love one and would endeavour to keep it.
However- on the practical side- it was expensive even 20 years ago. It's so wasteful if everyone is out all day. They need serviced frequently. Bear in mind that if you turn it off in summer you'll need an alternative cooking option.

3rd house with an Aga ,Love mine , it heats half the house and hot water
cooks , drying clothes, oh and folded jeans and other laundry almost ironed when drying on the closed lids ,
yes you can convert them to electric
in the summer switch mine off and I use an air fryer and do have an electric cooker but only use the hob
unless I’m mass catering

I’ll have to be dragged kicking and screaming from my Aga if and when I move. I grew up with one and have had them installled in both my family houses.

I adore it. It makes me happy.

@Ilovecashews , @Halfemptyhalfling didn't mean to cook the lamb, cade lambs need to be kept warm for survival 🐑 and farmers would pop the motherless lambs in the cool oven to stay warm

( I'm unsure if the spelling for "cade")

I missed @LilianaVikavanovich had already explained the lamb situation 🐑

Hugely expensive to run, but lovely to own. I currently have an oil Rayburn, which is slightly different in that it heats the house and the hot water but you can turn the ovens on and off. Cheaper to run but still cooks brilliantly. Makes the room boiling when you turn the ovens on though, so I have electric ovens and an induction hob as well, for the summer.

Have one, hate it. It has two heats, tepid and hot. If you like baking good luck, the oven is hotter on one side than the other so you constantly have to turn things round otherwise you end up with one side burnt and the other undercooked.

It literally burns money (only on one side though…see above).

We are redoing our kitchen next year and I can’t wait to get rid of it! When we next move an aga won’t be the aspirational selling point I once thought it was.

My Mum has one - I love it - it is such a wonderful luxury to always have warmth in your kitchen. Cooks beautifully once you get the knack - heats your home and is epic at drying clothes.

Does get turned off in Summer or else house is too hot.

And running costs are astronomical - not surprising really - constant heating with no real thermostat.

I'm afraid sensible thing is to get rid.

OP- This was me nearly 3yrs ago! We bought a derelict property which had a 1990's Aga in it. Ours is gas. After much research, we found a family company to dismantle it whilst we renovated. The wall it was on, we removed to make an open kitchen/diner. All the parts came apart and they stacked it up. Once we'd built a plinth in the new kitchen, they returned to re-assemble it all again.
If ours was oil or electric, I wouldn't have bothered, but because gas was alot cheaper at the time, we went with it.
We also put a 'regular' oven in the kitchen, because its a waste and too hot to have the aga on all your round.
You need to maximize the use of the aga when its on. I use mine as:

• as a toaster
• as a kettle
• Clothes dryer. I bought a brand new dryer when we renovated and 2yrs on, have never used the machine!
• to melt butter/melt chocolate/warm things instead of using the microwave
• You can apparently iron clothes over the top- although never tried this
• It heats the room and always feels cozy somehow
• The bottom oven replaces a slow cooker
• To boil/steam veg along with the normal 'oven' uses for cooking food
• It uses radiant heat, so cooks things perfectly from all sides
• In the summer, we just leave the pilot light on and use it as a plate warmer

Even using gas, I notice the gas bill does goes up when its on. Its hard to actually calculate exactly, because we only have it on in the colder months, when the underfloor and other heating would be on more anyways. We love it though and DH said yesterday he can't wait till we turn it back on!

Sorry this is long, but happy to answer any questions.

I also appear to be unsure of the word "of" I lost my train of thought, wasn't sure if cade was a common phrase so jumbled both in that sentence.

Thank you all so much, a lot of food for thought, appreciate all the comments!
(and glad that no live lambs are harmed during the use of agas…)

Mine is 20 years old. Love it - however I'm pretty sure it states that it uses 70L of oil a week.

Looking online they state 40L for a two oven aga per week - that's just running it and not cooking. So not opening doors or lids.

They're great in houses with big kitchens in places that are consistently chilly, and they will bring a massive pan of soup to boil in minutes if on full operating temperature. It's nice not to have to wait for an oven to preheat.

Having said that, they're unbearable in a small kitchen, though, and they cost a fortune to run. My in laws had one in their tiny galley kitchen and basically couldn't ever have it at a decent temperature for cooking so it was unspeakably useless.

Hi Op;
We have a gas one, you can have them converted to electric, however this makes them more expensive but more controllable so for example you can turn different parts off at differing times, if you google Blake and Bull they have a website and cover all sorts of things about AGAs, there's a lot of things to research, and they take a bit of time to get used to but they are a really nice way of cooking.

Blanches at the thought of an Aga in a galley kitchen!

I grew up with one - used as intended - as well as being used for cooking - it warmed sickly lambs, dried wet work clothes, warmed bottles of milk for orphan lambs, provided hot water and warmed chilly farmhouse kitchen - a hard working all rounder BUT unless you live on a working livestock farm I wouldn't touch one with a barge pole. Tney are needy, expensive to run and are a pain in the arse to cook on.

We moved into a house with one.
I think it depends on the type. Ours is gas and I don't think it's too expensive to run for what it does. About £100pm which sounds a lot but it keeps the kitchen warm (brilliant at this transition time of year)

Probably don't use it to its potential cooking wise but I do like it.

I have one I do contemplate getting rid of it but it does have benefits. I’m rural with an old stone house and the constant supply of heat really helps keep damp/ mould at bay. I wfh a lot so a cosy kitchen is a pleasant working spot. The dog likes to snooze by the aga in winter. It’s really nice to have a warm room in the winter, I’ll hang the dcs clothes on the front rail. Biggest advantage is during the annual power cut. Seems to happen every year and being able to cook food and have a Cosy space is incredibly helpful. I’m not sure if ohthrrs work during a power cut. Mines used to run on anthracite and was converted to a gravity fed oil tank at some point. I do have two wood stoves so could manage during a power cut it’d just be less convenient.

I switch it off in summer and run it from October to April on a low heat. Last year I filled the tank once 1100l it was about £700. I haven’t changed the kitchen since I mived in 12 years ago so it may still happen.