Do you have Aga experience?

[Spidermama]

I want an Aga. My main cncern is the lack of rings and the slow nature of the hot plates BUT I hear people enthuse about their Agas and owners always say they'd never look back, it's a way of life.

So how green are they? Does the food really taste better and if so why?

A thing of great beauty

So more like this one Slubber.

< Phwooooaaaaarrr!! >

At a fraction of the price of that gorgeous new one. I would never buy new now I've seen the prices. That green one would be around ten grand or more wouldn't it?

Oh yes that's lovely. I wouldn't go for white if I had a pick of coulours but beggars can't be choosers and I'd welcome it with loving arms.

lol @ no postage on th e-bay description....yeah no kidding, I think the postie would struggle to get it in his bag.

Would be interesting to see how much it sells for, usually even the 2nd hand ones go for well over a grand.

Right I'm off to make a rhubarb crumble in my bog standard Baumatic .... and dream ...

Prices of reconditioned ones

lol at hurly and at fertility effect.
dd was conceived in that house with the Aga but I can assure you the Aga had NOTHING to do with it!

I love ours. We do a fair amount of slowish cooking - stews, stock and soups, and slow roasted meat and veg. But it is also great for other stuff, especially baking. The hot top burner is very hot, and you move pans around the rings to get different heats. Sounds like a pain but isn't somehow.

The food is lovely.

And it gives a lovely heat in Spring/Autumn/Winter. We have got a little hob with a gas bottle for the summer so that we can turn it off.

Our one takes about 12 hours to come up to full heat when you turn it on.

It was in the house when we arrived. I cannot imagine actually spending what it would cost to buy a new one.

we had a big one when I was a kid. in winter we loved it - as well as 2 hobs it had a warming plate which you could sit on. dh doesn;t get it but there was something really lovely about coming in from a winter's walk and warming yourself on an aga. dh thinks it's the same as warming yourself on a radiator. it was a real asset to the kitchen - but needs to be the right style of kitchen. my mum is a fantastic cook and managed it well - though she tells me you really have to relearn how to cook. re the only 2 hobs thing iirc you could effectively alter the heat by moving your pans partially off the hob. however, as www says it was way too hot in summer and we had to turn it off and use a crappy electric oven instead. ie we had 2 ovens. which is pretty barmy. dh has been put off by trying to get to grips with them in rented holiday cottages and he swears he hates them - but, imho, they have never bene up to temperature and have been far more problematic than I remember ours being when we were kids. I probably would have one again - realistically I guess I wouldn;t install one but I'd consider buying a house with one. I'd have an incredible job to persuade dh though.

I had one too and i really WANTED to like it....I am afraid i agree with more or less everything WWW said, to be honest it made my life so much more difficult. It looked lovely, when clean (the cleaning is a BIG problem) and visitors always remarked on it but in everyday life it was a nightmare. Mine was solid fuel, which made the whole kitchen filthy during the emptying and filling, we did have it heating the radiators but they weren't that efficient. I needed to be at home at the right time to make sure it would be hot enough for when i needed to cook which isn't really practical in this day and age, what with alot of us working or having busy social lives. Maybe years ago when life was a little slower but i found mine to be a complete pain. Sad because this was something i really wanted and it just wasn't what i expected.

They're going for a song on ebay.
I'm not sure now. There seem to be more of you against than for. Perhaps I need to wake up and take off the rose tinted glasses.

I just look at my big brick chimney stack in the kitchen and it still screams out AGA!