AGA SAGA

[Bowerbird5]

Hi,
We have had the same kitchen for thirty years and I have been procrastinating over a new one on and off for a year. Yes, I know!
So it is a country cottage with an outside door in the corner. Then a short run of units under a new window which at present has a double and a half sink( one was for horse bucket, chicken feeders, other for people) then worktop to corner. Under is sink unit, dishwasher, washing machine at a bloody awkward angle because I bought dishwasher because I had four kids and was studying full- time. Turn. There is presently the original No. 2 Rayburn which we had put back in after damp proof done (30 yr) which was working and was a Godsend when I was living on a building site with three young kids( 8,5, 18mths) but later on when it needed new fire bricks and a new thermostat and money was tight ( still, baby 4) DH said it was taking too much wood and refused to fix it so it was disconnected but left in situ. Houses all my pans. I did miss it, especially in winter. We had put a Coalbrookdale Severn in for CH originally in inglenook in sitting room.
Then continued run of units including a single electric cooker in middle of these. Dresser at back wall. Radiator on next wall and doorway to house.
Are you still with me, sorry?
So we have had some kitchen plans drawn up in the summer and changed one lot twice ( too clinical for us) but not including any range. Now it is winter and I have been ill for seven weeks and so Christmas and then off work. Of course it has got me thinking and changing my mind a bit. The house is very thick stone two inside walls are 15 and 17 inches thick including kitchen 17" and the planners made us change the rotten oak solid door for a full glass panel door as it only had one smallish, half sash window and we knock down a wall inside. So it is often cold in winter. We had a big table for six squeezed in but now have a small one for two and put the other in dining room/ playroom as was. So when I retire I'm thinking that I would quite like an Aga, Rayburn, Esse. We don't have mains gas and will never be getting it, too many hills apparently.
So to all you knowledgeable Range owners I would like to know the pros and cons. DH will not go for solid fuel although it would keep him fit Ashe retires in a year or so. Older than me😁 I think part of me just loves the country kitchen look being a bit of a rural romantic but I wonder whether it is the right thing. So types, cost of running and would we need the flue where there is one or I see some photos where I can't see one. I know they have moved on a lot since our baby. We could put one into design where cooker is now. Another problem as I love it and intended keeping it but the oven went off with Christmas Cake and twice since that we have noticed,so part of the reason for a re think. Counting up it is about 12 yrs so if I am going to replace it could I have my Aga? Don't know anything about the electric ones. We have a decent size garden and could put oil in I suppose but means my veggie patch will have to go probably or could swap chickens over.
I thought I had this sorted until I was off ill but not sure if we would eat in kitchen in winter if retired.
DH is not keen and rolling his eyes about Range. I have a secret stash and can afford one but it is a lot of money on top of a new, possibly bespoke kitchen and I am half Scot. I'd have to live to 90's to reap full benefit. We do have some hardy Senior citizens here 80's , 90's and one reached a 100!
Sorry for such a long post but I know SOME people on Mumsnet don't like drip feeding so I think all the info is here. I must say I prefer this corner to some of the other bits. AIBU - some would say LTB if if wont agree to a Range! AIBU? I would like to know about any pitfalls remembering we will both be on pension in six years 😳 where did that time go?
Look forward to your opinions. Remember it maybe life-changing.
Oh and unfortunately our AGA shop closed down so it is a bit of a trek. If I had known that I might have been in there for a cheaper deal but I try and avoid the city centre. It was last year I think.

ps you can also install oil tanks underground these days - would need a pump.

www.waterfordstanley.com/stanley-cookers

We had a Stanley oil fired range - did the central heating/ hot water as well as being an excellent cooker.
It has two burners, so you can run just the cooker if you don't need the heating. I could program the heating and hot water just like a normal ch system- it did not need to be on all the time.
There was also an electric element in the oven to warm it up quickly in the summer.
It was great, loved it.

I had an Aga for two years, it either took 20 mins to cook dinner or 2 hours (depending on how it felt on the day!) It was never a constant temperature. It was really hot in the summer (no room for another cooker), but lovely in winter. But and this is the main thing, it used 3 tanks of oil a year!!!! £700 a tank of oil when we bought our house. Oil has gone down and I have just filled a tank for £500 (last year was only £350 ). I now use under 1 tank a year for heating and hot water.

I have a lovely electric range cooker with an induction hob and it cooks everything at the temperature you want.

I adore my aga not least because there are six of us and we need the space/volume (it's a 4 oven one). However, I weep over the environmental impact (and the cost of oil...). DB has a newly installed Everhot and if when we move I will look to furnish a new kitchen with something of a similar size / versatility but with more control. But I do love it ...

I have an exceptionally old oil fired Stanley range cooker and I would rather die than have to give him up! He does heating to half the house (the original half!) and also cooking. Can do hot water too but we have never had it set to do it as we need the the boiler on for heating anyway so no point running two for hot water as well as two for heating.

I’d love an aga if we had one, but actually I have no desire to change Stanley for anyone! He does a marvellous job of heating the most used end of the house as well as doing the cooking and keeping warm of lots of things. I definitely agree about becoming an aga cook though! You have to remember the 7 minute rule- nothing you do on the hot plates should take more than 7 minutes or you risk losing temperature in the ovens and it not being hot enough to cook!

I have a 4 door Aga, oil fired, the figure I remember is that it uses 70 litres per week. So you would 70 x the price of heating diesel pw.

Have just looked online and they are saying less than 70 that but it will depend if you have it full on or not.

Since we put in new heating the aga is not needed and goes off May to Oct. So you need to consider what other heating you ahve. Our neighbours have a oil raeburn with controls so that you can turn it on and off and also does the water but imv it is a bit noisy in the kitchen ie like running a heating boiler.

New Aga convert here

We had one put in last autumn after lusting after them for years. Ours is a traditional three-oven gas Aga with a power flue and is our only cooker. Despite having never cooked on one before, I've found it very easy to use.

Our gas bill in the winter is £2/day. The Aga keeps most of downstairs toasty and we only need to turn on the central heating for about three hours a night. It also dries all our laundry and makes me happy every day. I particularly love coming downstairs in the morning (or in the middle of the night) to a cosy kitchen.

If we get too hot in summer we will open the windows.

Our gas bill in the winter is £2/day.
That includes all central heating and hot water.

I would sell my soul for an aga !!!

i love love love our aga but it is terrible environmentally, although at least i don't eat meat so that offsets it a little bit. it costs an extra £60 a month in gas, which isn't terrible but it is an added cost to be taken into account. the standard electric ones are crazy expensive to run though so given that you can't have a gas one OP i'd look into oil. dh had a solid fuel rayburn in a previous house and said it was a massive ball ache to keep going.

overall they are stupidly expensive to buy and run and maintain - you have to really love them to justify it. (i have a cheapo car and i don't go out much)

I love mine and so does my dog!

You can offset against the dryer, some hot water and heating in the kitchen.....

The convenience of being able to cook the evening meal pretty much at any time and leave it in until you need it is very important....

I don't think I'll ever have a house that will justify an Aga after this one which makes me quite sad actually....

WOW! I've been busy and looked in to see if I got any replies like one or two.This is brilliant I am so glad I posted.
What a varied response too. Thank you so much I have just read everyone and can feel the love!
So a couple of years ago I started the mentioning of a new kitchen when the drawer kept falling apart every time.I was thinking then of oil fired as DH will NOT go for solid fuel as we have a triple pallet log store now to keep up with and was the reason the Rayburn wasn't fixed.I just couldn't bear to take it out.
Years ago and then some more I worked as aHead girl on a horse stud/farm and we had a big AGA so I am quite confident cooking on them and we loved warming our bums on a cold day.Also useful for sitting cups of coffee on the lid of the hotplate because the vet always called at coffee time even if we changed time.If he was less than 1/2 hr it was still drinkable.I think it must have been oil fired but if it didn't have a head and tail I was that interested those days.When I was in Scotland at trekking stables a very well known lady used to hang the horse rugs over a pulley.We used to pick the hairs out of our hot dinner and play Guess which Pony! we tried not to think about what else might have dropped off into it but no one died.
I was worried about the price of oil but then it will be paying some of DH's pension so maybe that is trade off.Do you think we could get a discount for 35 yrs toil? It is a big consideration.Good to know you can bury tank i didn't know that, thank you. perhaps I should ring around locally and see the price here.Or ask friends up the road.
It doesn't worry me too much about summer because we live right in the north and as Tea Fairy says open the windows but in our case I can open the door and I do tend to leave it open all day anyway when I am home. Thinking about changing it to a stable door anyway.
I was reading a bit about the electric one as you can control it but in one way it doesn't really reflect AGA at me so previously put off. Also with living up norf we get a few power cuts.Years ago I knew if there was a power cut at tea time I would be getting visitors...to use the Rayburn.It used to be quite fun putting in and taking out casseroles etc and the odd tea or glass of wine while waiting.Sometimes the kitchen was full of villagers. We dont really need CH now as the Charnwood is so efficient.
So lots to think about I am certainly not put off more pushed the other way I think.
Keep the stories going I love them. I did title it AGA SAGA!
Waves to Afresh yep it me with my long posts!

I have an elderly Stanley Superstar, it's a little stretched with the eight rads we have, but I see it as a trade off between just about warm enough most of the time, vs super hot sometimes. We also have a wood burning stove that can do CH/HW instead of Stanley.

If I won the lottery I'd have a new one in a heartbeat!

I want you to have YOUR range too...DOOOOO IT!!

Randommess love the name I had to go back and find you.

There are only two of us left the kids have all flown the nest long ago.
There is a bedroom directly above then the bathroom.we've three bedrooms.That one is DD's when she visits, well it is still full of her stuff at the moment.She will like it if it is warmer because she moved down south to Uni and hasn't come back yet. Her rent is extortionate. I told her she could rent a mansion with room for a pony up here for that price.

Thank you for the links to Stanley cookers I think I cooked on one of those in the Isle of Lewis. I liked it I had forgotten about them. Sister's friend lent us her house which had the Esse. I don't think I have ever used an Everhot I'm sure it was an Esse. I know a lot of people up there were buying them at the time because cheaper to buy, transport and service if they all bought same.Then engineer would service the whole village. Think they did a deal B&B and whisky involved no doubt. Some had Stanleys.
Thanks a lot.

Thanks MrsHomeslice{grin]

We have a 2 door Esse and to be honest it does my head in. Too small to cook for a really big group, difficult to have suitable hob temperature for more than 2 saucepans... I don’t know. It’s just annoying. Too slow to heat up from its ticking over “low” setting to decide to do something quickly.
However, I like the constant low level heat and the fact we can dry our washing over it at any time of year in spite of living in the rainiest town on the planet. Not sure I’d buy another if starting from scratch though....

Thanks interesting. That is why i started the thread because i can go to the shop and asked but even on the website they are saying don't buy a re-conditioned one...well they would wouldn't they because they want you to spend more money and buy a new one.And yet a few years back i enquire and he said they might buy my Rayburn off me for £250 -300.
I laughed and said"Because it is an antique?"
He said "No, they get re-conditioned."
I thought if I asked on here then someone would answer and give me their honest opinion of the pros and cons.So far I have had a briiliant response and it is only day 1.

One of the reasons I liked my Stanley was the huge cooking surface on the top. Literally the whole top can be used as a hot plate - the insulated lid is in three parts, two "halves" with a small "kettle " one. At Christmas I could have every pan I owned on it.
The main oven was a good size too.

We have a programmable AIMS AGA which is about five years old. We choose when it’s hot and whenever it’s on slumber (so background heat rather than fully heated for cooking). I’ve just set it to holiday as we’re away from tomorrow. We think it makes the kitchen and wouldn’t be without but we do have an ordinary two oven Neff for large events and summer.
Advantages
Background warmth so house never feels truly cold.
Clothes drying - we rarely tumble dry.
Trainer and welly drying after dog walks/runs so never have to put on damp trainers.
Ironing. Apart from heavy cotton double cuff shirts for my husband, we do virtually no ironing.
Sterilising jars for chutney and jam.
No cooking smells throughout house (really useful if making red cabbage, fish, sprouts).
Space for cooking for large numbers.
Drying pans so they don’t rust. Drying wooden spoons to reduce risk of infections.
Melting chocolate on top slowly. Keeping things warm easily.
No need for slow cooker.
Brilliant for proving bread.
Drawing everyone into the kitchen.

Disadvantages-
initial cost. Running costs are less because we set timer.
I do have several burns to my forearms that look like I self harm because I don’t always remember to use gauntlets.
Not smelling food means you are timer reliant where what you are cooking is time critical.
If you have no other cooker and a small kitchen then I guess it could get very warm in Sumer. We’ve not experienced this but it’s possible.

OOOH thank you that is a plus one for AIMS.
I think it would be a case of just having one this time. I do have a camping stove and a barbecue.
Would you be willing to message me cost of running.

Do you need a flue for this AGA? we do have one but could site it in the middle of the room if you don't.

See I would move above the kitchen and then you could have the heating off most of the year!!!

I would design your kitchen to make it the place where you eat and chill all winter it will be so toasty!

I'm a first time AGA owner having inherited our electric four-oven AGA when we moved to this house 3 years ago. The AGA was put in about 9 years ago, new. It has AIMS.

I work from home and love to cook ( I mean LOVE!) so for me, after taking a little time to adjust, I absolutely adore the AGA. There are some things it just does beautifully. I think its because the heat is from all sides, so things cook very consistently and evenly, remaining moist. Someone else said on here that the hobs are rubbish which I agree with: I have two hobs on mine being "hot as bloody hell" or "won't keep a large pan simmering". And of course if you cook on the hobs too much (i.e. have the lids up) whilst you have things in the oven, your oven temperature will drop like a stone. Need to remember that when you are trying to do nice, crisp roast potatoes! For that reason I had a domino induction hob installed last year, as a back-up for when I'm catering for large numbers.

Our AGA is a real workhorse. I do B&B and pop-up dinner evenings so use the AGA a LOT, and will often start prepping/ cooking things in the middle of the day. I love the fact that the AGA is all ready to go. It will also dry and air 1 set of bed linen in under 8 hours (wet from the washing machine). In fact, we've just replaced one of my two washing machines and now don't have a tumble dryer at all (I didn't use the dryer on the old one once in 3 years).

As I cook at any time of the day I'm not actually a fan of AIMS, as it means that the AGA goes warm rather than hot. For that reason I have mine permanently switched to manual (on full, in other words) but I can see for others AIMS would be really useful i.e. if you cook at regular times of the day. We reckon ours costs £35 week to run. With electric it only needs servicing every 5 years (and the engineer told me that is basically to vacuum the front of the control pane and change the filter).
AGAs are one of those things you either love or you don't.

We have a massive kitchen which was built with underfloor heating but which in 3 years we've never used - the AGA is heating enough. I absolutely wouldn't be without mine :0)

How much is an aga?

If there is such a great second hand market then just buy it and don’t worry about having to live until 112, just sell it again. I don’t understand the love for them, I wouldn’t take a present if one, but if it makes you happy just get one and enjoy it!!

Thank you Daisy so another vote for AIMs I didn't realise they have been on the go for that long. I have found one fairly near here that is a show room model with discount. Black. I have a green Tricity Bendix with brass handles at present which I love and still looks great. It has been a fab cooker which I am pleased with as DH wanted me to buy cheaper model. Just recently the oven went off two or three times. He was using it twice so might be that he didn't set it properly and the once with me might have been electric off as very windy. I had left Christmas cake in. When cut it was undercooked. I am a good baker.😕
This is great feedback from everyone you are definitely swaying me. I have a guy from Howdens coming to plan the other one left and they can't find the plans hhmmm! Still I will ask for two one with an Aga in place😄

Hmm interesting you say about your oven cutting out - my Rangemaster at our old house would do that sometimes if I had something in the oven for a long time (like a casserole). It would trip the switch on the whole house. Really annoying, and yes it did do it at Christmas once! Good luck whatever you decide Bower.