AGA - Should I take the plunge?

[guccigirly]

I am having two rooms knocked into one room to give me a big open plan kitchen diner (after 8 years of nagging, husband has finally agreed). We are big foodies and husband is a very good cook. Option 1 is to install a gas aga, to not only cook but to heat the room, option 2 is to put in a normal gas range that you switch on and off when needed and then install a multi fuel burner on the other side of the room. Can anyone please advise me on the gas Aga is it expensive to run, is your's reliable and also is it risky to buy a second hand Aga ?

Love mine dearly, have it in similar room and need no other heat in there, in fact combined with wood burner, the heating hasn't gone on yet this year.
Fab for cooking, mine now 15 yrs old and going strong, oil not gas though.
I would take any running cost figures with a pinch of salt though, they guzzle fuel horribly.

Yes you should!

But, have you considered a Rayburn? We have a Rayburn XT which has a powerful enough burner that you can turn it up and down quickly - it takes about 45-60 mins to get up to temp - but is a proper range cooker that you can leave on all the time if you want.

We love ours. It's awesome, and I think if we ever moved house, we'd have to buy another.

Our model has a power flue, so is easier to site than an Aga, but if we had the chimney, we'd also have been considering an Aga. Prob would still have gone for the XT though.

Thanks Waswondering and roastchestuntlatte. Very helpful.

transhcansinatra, I will look at the Rayburn XT. I haven't looked at that. I did consider an electric AGA but we have one friend who has both a gas and electric one in their kitchen and they said that the difference in taste between the two different fuel types is very obvious. For that reason I ruled out Everhot (electric only).

We've just come back from a holiday let which had a 2 oven Aga in which husband managed to cook (a delicious) Xmas dinner for 10. So I would say go for it, but husband would disagree (would much have preferred to be using our old range cooker apparently). However we both rediscovered the childhood delight of Aga toast (toast cooked in a rack on the warming plate, for the uninitiated). I'd buy one for that alone.

TreaterAnita, thank you. My toaster is on the blink at the moment, so maybe that is worth bearing in mind !

Yes. Go for it. But they are £££

We have a 4 oven gas and I love it. We have no other heating in our kitchen and it is toasty.

Everything about it is expensive though.

Ours is 10 years old and fairly reliable. We have it serviced once a year (£70) and have had to call out the engineer in 2 separate occasions for other problems.

Running costs are huge. Our central heating is oil so the aga is the only use of gas. When we moved in we we're put onto the recommended direct debit amount for a family of 4 with 4 bedrooms. I questioned it and expected them to owe us money after a few months. 6 months in and we owed the £40.... So really really pricey.

Blowninonabreeze did you buy it new or was it a reconditioned one?

Thanks for your advice, I am 90% convinced I will get one, just not sure if it is worth taking the risk of getting a second hand one. Am going to research the Rayburn too now.

The people we bought our house from got it new. It was still under warranty when we moved in.

We now use an independent aga engineer who also works with someone who reconditions agas. He has no problems with them. (If you're midlands based, will pm you his details)

We're buying a reconditioned Rayburn (solid-fuel) - would much prefer an Aga!.....but we need to be able to burn wood/multifuel (which the aga won't) .

I also love that you can get the companion module with the Aga. The Aga shop told me it wouldn't be right next to a Rayburn, they're designed to slot together or something....

Wishing you all the best with it!

And I think they are worth the bit extra money-wise!

Blowinonabreeze thank you but I am not in the Midlands area but kind of you to offer the engineer's details. Castlelough thanks for your advice about the companion module, hadn't thought of that, will research that too.

Have slept on it and the AGA or Rayburn XT is the way to go for me. Thanks for all your advice posters, I'm quite new to Mumsnet and appreciate your help.

I have a gas aga - came with the house.

It is very very expensive to run.

Its not great for cooking a lot of stuff on in my opinion - you can't really do stir-frys/steaks etc very well.

I will be replacing mine once we re-do the kitchen.

And I had always wanted one.

Yes, christmas lunch is a nightmare to do in a gas aga as the pressure goes down it seems at lunchtime when every other bugger is using their gas ove and the temperature takes ages to come back up again.

The toast is nice to be fair and its good for drying clothes on. But if I were going to have one, I'd make sure I had a normal oven as well.

MrsCampbellBlack, this is why I have some doubts as I get such mixed reviews about Agas in relation to reliability and running costs. Maybe the answer is to have a two ring gas hob on a worktop as well as the Aga?

I inherited one with our house too and found the exact problems MrsCB mentions. My DH is also a keen cook and insisted we replace it after running out of heat when cooking Christmas dinner. We've replaced it with a gas cooker with two ovens which is about the same size as Aga. Got quite good second hand value for it on Ebay though :)

Also our gas bill went down substantially after we changed it. And kitchen was unbearably warm in summer.

Apart from that they're excellent!!