Aga?

[pacific407]

We've just moved house and inherited a really beautiful 4 oven Aga. We're planning a kitchen renovation, which will involve moving the kitchen to another part of the house. I'm told it will be about £1000 to move the Aga, on top of the cost of cleaning/servicing etc. that we'll need to do.
Question is, should we go through the faff of doing that or sell the thing and buy a normal stove?
I love the look of it, but am not really in love with cooking on it (I'm told that comes with time?!). But I'm also concerned about what to do in Summer? We had notionally planned a "spare" single oven but that doesn't solve the hob situation if we turn the Aga off in Summer, and it seems like a huge expense to move it if we're then relying on a back up oven for half the year!!
But everyone I speak to looks at me like I'm mad when I talk about getting rid of it!

It’s a difficult decision isn’t it. I also love the look of agas. But we bought an Everhot, it’s all electric, and has an induction hob as well as the hot plate .so you can turn it off or right down in summer and just use the induction hob. It’s amazing and I’ll never buy another cooker. Have a look at them, Everhot also sell reconditioned ones ,you can register to get updates on these, or keep checking their website. Sorry, this hasn’t helped much has it.

Can't advise on the costs to move but we've got a Rayburn as our only stove at the moment, they do take some getting used to but I'm fine cooking on it now. It is on all year however which isn't fun in summer. When we refurb our kitchen we'll be getting a range cooker too and the Rayburn will be off for half the year. If you don't have room for both I wouldn't keep it personally, they are lovely but not always practical unless you don't mind it being on all year. There's not a massive amount of oven space in them either.

Our situation may be a bit different as we're in an old farmhouse and it's our main source of heat at the moment and it's solid fuel which makes it interesting. Next one will be gas powered.

Ours is our main heating system so the situation is a bit different but if I could swap one for an electric range I would even though the food tastes so much better in the Aga. As ours is always on the oven is always generally hot although we do turn it down when we go out so cooking is pretty quick and you can be impulsive which I also like. Despite all this I would swap for one that could be turned off in summer

Ha ha! Our house has an Aga (gas) installed years ago by previous owners and also a separate double oven and hob. We have a microwave too and I like my slow cooker (Crock pot) when I make a stew. Tbh I’m not much of a cook and my husband and I prefer to eat different things.

We don’t really use the Aga - we have it on low just to keep the chill off in the kitchen as it is quite expensive to run. We just basically use it for warming plates, heating croissants and drying tea towels on! There are Aga cooking classes online (which you pay for) but they seem to be aimed at cooks making big family meals or dinner parties (not with Covid restrictions). I sometimes think I might try a class though.

We turn the Aga off in late Spring until about mid-October. I wouldn’t remove it as our house is early Victorian Grade II listed and it would detract from it’s appeal.

Our aga warms a large kitchen all day at this time of year. Do you need that. Goes off in summer , we have another cooker.
But I have been wondering what happens when we all go green, ie electric in the future ( find it hard to believe we will) as ours is oil.
What does yours run on OP?

@PinkyParrot it's gas, so not brilliant environmentally either. Goodness knows what it's going to do to our energy bills because although it obviously does throw out some heat in the kitchen, the previous owners decided to put under floor heating in the kitchen and normal gas central heating in the rest of the house too. All lovely and cosy at the moment of course cause it's winter!

@Mintine my god those Everhots look beautiful!! I'd never heard of them but will have a look into that, thanks!

@jiskoot I think if we didn't need to move the Aga, with the cost associated with that, it might be easier to justify keeping it and just supplementing with another cooker (although it is absolutely huge so there wouldn't be much kitchen space left if I added another range cooker into the mix!). You're right, too, for something so huge there is precious little oven space.

But I have been wondering what happens when we all go green, ie electric in the future ( find it hard to believe we will) as ours is oil.

You can get kits to convert to electricity.

Google will bring up several companies who do them.

I've got an Aga, absolutely love it and wouldn't get rid of it for anything. It cooks like a dream, keeps the kitchen warm and looks beautiful. It's electric, yes the bills are higher but worth it.

Have you had a quote for removing it entirely? Just from a quick google it looks to cost about £400 for that.

@Pootles34 No I'm looking into potentially selling it - because it's gas (rather than oil) and not too old, it may be possible to get something for it. But I have to confess I had assumed there would be a ready market for them and that doesn't look like it's the case.

There very little resale in an aga. We have a beautiful old one that we eventually gave away and were glad to have It gone.

Having said that we had an aga in our last home and loved it so I would be inclined to say: keep it, work with it, learn how to use it and love it. We also had underfloor heating but never had it on in the kitchen because the aga heated the room so well. But, it is really expensive to run so you do have to be committed to it. Oh yes, and our service man kept saying we were going to have to convert it to electric as that's the way they are going so, in theory, more money to throw at it!

They are very cheap secondhand because they have to be dismantled to be moved and then reassembled in their new location. That is quite expensive in itself. It's also a bit of a niche market. The running costs put a lot of people off.

We have an oil Rayburn 600K, it's our only heat source for the radiators, plus part hot water (HW shared with solar).
We cook exclusively on it from late October to early March till it's 'cheaper' to use the solar, as once warm it acts like a storage heater - great for drying washing.
The hot water and heating are all independently controlled on timers, so we only need it on 'as an oven' for cooking. When it's just doing hot water, there's no heat from it. It's cheap to run (about £400/year spent on oil). In summer when the solar is generating over 2KW it then goes to heat the hot water tank, so we're not using oil most of the summer.
Do check if your Rayburn can be modified to run like this, I think they make newer ones that can.

As an owner of beautiful Miele ovens and a fantastic induction hob I never understand the love of agas. A friend had an oil fired 4 oven one. Total luxury. My modern ovens are so much easier to use and everything is perfect every time. Agas are a massive faff and not as desirable as they were and only for people with £10,000 spare. Give me Miele ovens every time.

@Agapinkus Great advice, thank you. At the moment it's looking like a bit of a black hole for our cash! I've (literally just now) had a quotation for £800 to buy it (including uninstalling/capping off the gas and removing) and from the sounds of it I need to bite the guy's arm off if I decide not to keep it!

I also have an Everhot with an induction hob. They are the best of both worlds and absolutely fabulous.

If you are going to have to move the Aga and you are not desperate to keep it then yes, take the money.

I would have loved an Aga but tbe expense put me off!

Another vote here for an Everhot with induction hob. Best purchase I've made for my house, I absolutley love it. You can switch off the ovens individually if you want to scale back the heat in the summer. Apart from heatwaves I keep mine all on as I miss the cooking. We have a combi oven microwave too which I have never used for anything but a microwave. Zero maintenance required and absolutley amazing customer service.

I would suggest looking at some aga demos on-line - sarah whitaker does some, or speak to your local aga shop to see if they can suggest any whilst we are in covid - they will really show you how to use one and appreciate it. Ive been cooking on one for 21 years - initially a gas 2 oven and now a 2 oven 30amp electric which draws down overnight on economy 7. 2 oven gas and 30amp electric traditional ones (on 24/7) cost roughly £25 pw to run. Electric 24/7 cost around £45 pw to run. Modern ones can be turned on and off and ovens and hobs run independently (so cheaper) - but to me they are not the real thing - so an expensive cast iron box to house a more modern oven!

If your new kitchen is big enough you could put in another oven and hob for sumner use - but i love my aga so much i never turn it off - just open doors and windows in summer!

The people who say you will get used to it - my mother lived in a house with an aga (oil fired) for 10 years and hated it every minute of that time.

I think they are very marmite - you either love them or hate them.

@Agapinkus- I could have written your exact post myself word for word!!! We've just bought a derelict home with a lovely gas aga. We are opening out the kitchen/diner, so just had the aga dismantled last week and plan to have it reasembled once the extension is done.

I've never used one, so been reading up as much as possible. Apparenlty its more common to turn it off during summer now, especially with double glazing, better insulation etc, so we are planning on having a seperate oven and cook top. Aga shops used to run demonstration courses, but I think these are available online now.

Depending on the model you have and where in the country you are, the cost for dismantling will be different. Ours is about £400 dismantle, £600 reassemble and maybe £100-£200 for extra parts/upgrading. £1200 is alot, but would be offset by reduced heating needed in a large, open kitchne/diner.

I'll include some pics of them dismantling out aga. I had no idea how much vermiculite there was, or how messy it would be! They did clean up though, but remove anything from the room you dont want to get dusty!

The pics didnt come out in the last message. try again.

@Talia99 lol that's what I'm wondering. I love to cook, but I'm not really a homely cook (if that makes sense?! Not so much cakes and bread and slow-cooked stews) so I'm wondering whether it's just that it doesn't suit the way I live and cook, rather than it just being that I haven't got used to it yet (I suspect it's a bit of both!).

PresentingPercy

How are they a massive faff? You literally open the appropriate door and stick your food in, don't even have to wait for it to warm up. Ours is electric so no servicing required either 🤷