Agas - keep or sell? WWYD?

[GingerPigz]

Have at last found a house to buy that we both love!

There is an electric Aga in the kitchen. We have never had an Aga and know very little about them. DH wants to get rid of it (predominately because of perceived running costs) but I'm not so sure. I know they are considered to be quite a luxury item (if purchase price is anything to go by) and quite like the look of them (in a country style kitchen). Not sure we'd get much money for it and would need to buy a new oven to replace it. The house has air source heat pump heating (but quite a low EPC 🤔) and we would be looking to install solar panels.

Please give me your thoughts about and experiences with Agas to help us decide... TIA

Or use an induction hob, microwave, air fryer, instant pot etc. We do. Everhot is turned off when it’s warm.

We have an Everhot - over the summer I gradually turned off more and more of it until it was off entirely. I batch cooked ahead for when the weather forecast was extreme or we just had a lot of salads.

In the winter we can leave off the central heating and stay in the kitchen.

However it does put out a lot less heat in a room than an Aga and is significantly cheaper to run.

You need to know what type of electric aga you have first - i have a 2 oven, 30amp aga which heats up overnight on economy 7 for 5 hours and then you cook during the day on the heat which has been stored overnight. We do live in a very well insulated house and in winter hardly have any heating on because the aga heat permeates the rest of the house.

ive got it turned off at the moment because of the very hot summer but i usually keep it on and im lucky enough to have an ordinary electric oven and gas hob to use instead.

we are going to turn it back on at the end of september and see how we go with running costs because i love it so much and have been cook8ng on an aga for 22 years.

if you do keep it you need to go to an aga showroom and do a couple of aga cooking courses because if you use it properly they are wonderful. There are also some you tube videos - sarah whittaker does some - which will show you how they work.

they are expensive and a luxury to have - no getting away from that.

Keep it and have a back up oven for the summer they are so awesome and I really miss my childhood aga.

We were unsure whether to keep the aga when we moved into current house, but we absolutely love it now. We also have the companion cooker so the aga is off half the year and we miss it, we find the ovens cook things so well. We don’t use the hotplates as we prefer the control of the gas hob. Whilst buying an aga isn’t ever likely to be listed as a way to save money, ours is gas and our energy bills for a 4000 square foot house aren’t bad. Having one warm dry room seems to stop us wanting the heating on very often - typically we only want the central heating on for a couple of hours a day in the coldest 3 months.
I would keep yours for a few months to see If you do like it. The only thing that annoys me about ours is that the ovens are so well insulated that you can’t smell things cooking and if I don't set a timer I forget and burn things.

We keep debating the same with our aga, but we use it instead of the microwave, the toaster, the tumble dryer, the kettle. It's great for cooking once you've got used to it. It also heats the hot water and runs the bathroom towel rail. I'm not sure whether running all those things separately would be cheaper or not!

I loved our old Aga, pop some potatoes in, in the morning & lovely jacket potatoes for lunch. Slow cooking Dahl. Loads of cooking is just nicer.

hand towel always dry &warm

clothes drying

cosy cosy living space

it was oil, along with the heating, so generally a GULP when the tank was filled, but we didn't really think about the cost once that was paid for.

it went off in the Summer & I missed it, but we had an induction 2 ring hob and a convection microwave combo thing. That had more than one accident! Convection part didn't do the bottle steriliser much good! All winter just using it as a microwave, then having to remember which setting it was on etc, was a bit much with 3 under 3.

we have since moved, I miss it, but if we still lived there now & it was electric, I wouldn't enjoy it as much because having the electric on all the time seems wasteful, yet with the oil it didn't (mindset not really any different).

I don't think I'd get rid of it though, maybe just turn it on for less time? I don't know how long the electric ones take to heat up or what the cost is to heat them up v maintain the heat?

We had one (oil fired) but I didn't like the lack of control/responsiveness as being iron it holds the heat for way longer than other cookers. We swapped if for an electric induction range, which I love!

NB our Aga was also electric controlled, though it ran on oil, so you could turn it on and off when you wanted. A previous Rayburn in an old house had to be switched on and off by an engineer then stayed on all the time in between.

Hi, we've had an inherited oil aga for a year now and are going to covert it to electric which means it will function like a regular cooker. Off unless we're cooking with it. For half the price we could have a new range cooker with induction top, but after weighing up the whole waste/reuse/buy new and how to dispose of the aga, we decided to keep it and convert. It does suit the kitchen style! However, it will be on a timer which means we can turn it on occasionally for that cosy feeling in the winter. It was heating some of the hot water, but we've disconnected it from that and use only the oil fired boiler for that and central heating.

Just check that it does function that way if converted. My understanding was that an electric aga was like an everhot. A storage cooker. So you can’t just turn it on to cook instantly like you can a normal fan oven. It takes a couple of hours to get to cooking temperature. I might be wrong though.

It really depends on the model of Aga you're using.
www.agaliving.com/products/how-choose-your-aga-cast-iron-cooker

What I like about them is the fact you can cook a meal on the hob - there's room for several pots and pans + boil a kettle + cook something in the oven + keep plates warm + heat the house (so you don't need the heating on) + stays warm for ages so your washing dries.

Personally I prefer our Rayburn 600 series (independent controls to set boiler and/or oven on, using timers and/or thermostats). Works brilliantly with solar + a solar iboost - we've barely used a drop of oil since March to heat our hot water.

Not everyone's cup of tea, admittedly.

Yes!! So many ashp's were mis-sold, I think you've found one. They do not work well unless they are in a well insulated house, then they're great. But in a house with a low epc they will be seriously inefficient and running on electric! 😱😱

We bought a derelict property 2yrs ago which needed complete overhaul from new roof to flooring, windows and everything in between. The gas aga seemed to be the newish thing in the house- although 20yrs old!

We have built the new kitchen to include it, along with a 2nd electric oven. The aga specialist we had said that nowadays, with increased insulation in houses etc, majority of people turn their aga off in the summer. I have never used one, and what info I can find, they are like Marmite! Some rave about them- others hate. I've looked at youtube videos on how to cook and hope to use it to the max when I can. Ironing sheets, toast, heating, kettle, drying clothes etc. They are worth watching to realise what can be done on an aga.

TBH- If ours was electric, I would have sold it. 2yrs ago, our gas was 3p/kWh- its now more than doubled to 7.4kWh. I've been wobbling about whether I made the right decision to keep it, but time will tell.

Have a secondary source for cooking- incase you need it and turn to aga off in summer- or altogether!

Agas and the cost of living crisis

I lusted after an Aga for many years and finally got one six years ago. I love it...

However, we switched it off this summer for the first time, partly because of the weather 🥵 and partly to save money.

Three months of cooking on a single ring halogen hob and a microwave and I can't wait to turn it on again.

My house doesn't feel as cosy without it.

I love my electric Aga and can’t wait to turn it back on when it gets cold. Amazing toast - make sure you get the rack! Not cheap to run no but not horrendous- we have economy 7 at about 15p kWh overnight. We heat for 6.5 hours overnight so 32.5 kWh per day @ 15p is about £5 per day. The economy 7 rate has tripled since last winter but mine will definitely be going on

Your understanding isn’t quite right - it heats up overnight and then releases heat continually all through the day so is always hot.

You only use electricity at night to heat it - during the day there is a fan to move the heat but that uses next to nothing power wise.

Cons: Resale value probably at a low plus the cost of dismantling and removing to consider. Try and find out the model, and get an accurate running cost and go from there. If you like BBQs and salads you can turn off in the summer, this summer could have been pretty unbearable with one on, depending on where you are.

Pros? HEAVEN in the winter!

Good luck selling it!

There was a (gas) Aga in the house that we bought 17 years ago. Once we got used to it, we enjoyed having it (though turned it off in the summer and used the attached "unit"). However, we found it harder to justify the environmental impact and last winter we didn't turn it on apart from a couple of weeks around Christmas. Together with installing a new smart thermostat system for the central heating, we halved our total gas consumption. The recent increase in energy prices made it even less attractive and I am told that at the moment electric Agas cost even more to run than gas Agas (unless they are the kind you don't have on all the time).

We have just installed a new kitchen and taken out the Aga, replacing with electric ovens and hob. A few years ago we could have sold it for a few thousand I think. We could not find anyone to buy this, even though it is in good condition. The companies that used to buy them to refurbish and re-sell have excess stock. We were pleased when we finally found someone to take it away for free rather than paying at least £500 for the service.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/sep/13/70-to-run-an-oven-for-a-week-how-the-fuel-crisis-has-aga-owners-ripping-out-their-stoves

I just read this yesterday! My sister has an aga - it really does the nicest roast potatoes and toast.

I have got a 13 amp electric conversion Aga and bloody love it - but I'm removing it as it costs approximately £10 per day to run at the current rates. I can't imagine not having one, but I don't have any choice

There are electric Agas which are less power hungry, though, so it might be worth finding out exactly which model it is. The 13 amp is not the night storage type - it's just on, using electricity, the whole time (unless you turn it off, of course). I've loved having it to warm the downstairs, but it will be cheaper to put the gas central heating on a bit more.