There is a thread on AGA....

Gem,

I really envy you, I would love an aga. I grew up in a house with a solid fuel aga, but of course now you can get oil or gas fired ones. The front of the aga gets hot to the touch, but not burning (just like when a conventional oven is in use).

Agas are brilliant for cooking, you just need to spend a little time getting used to it. If you enjoy cooking as a hobby, you will love the aga very soon. My mother really missed hers when we moved.

As well as for cooking it has other advantages. Our house didn't have central heating, and didn't need it cos of the aga. We had a pull-up clothes airer rack thing (don't know it's proper name) attached to the kitchen ceiling which dried all our laundry. As a family you wouldn't need a tumble dryer. If you need clothes dried quickly, smooth them on the top of the aga, they won't need ironing.

We used to let the aga go out for a couple of weeks in the hottest part of the summer at the same time we booked to have it serviced, turn it down otherwise. These days in high summer you can get away with a microwave, my sister (who has a reaburn) keeps a 2 ring gas bottle hob to use just at this time.

Really if you can, I'd hold out to get an aga. Invite us down when you're in :0

Gem,

If your campain succeeds Come back here and I'll tell you how an aga lets you prepare a full Christmas Dinner for 10, with Turkey and Pork, ready for 1:30 pm WITHOUT having to get up and start cooking at 6:00 am.

Easy - does it involve microwave ready meals ;o

OO,

oh no, no "cheating" involved, just a touch of forward planning, a bit of organisation (not much, honest) and a lovely old-fasioned aga.

We had an old rayburn in the first house we rented. It was smokey and never got hot enough but we fell in love and have had rayburns ever since. They are wonderful - the heart of the home and you will never have cold bum again!

A rayburn is slightly smaller than an aga but IMO easier to look after. But we live in a small cottage and feel the rayburn takes over a lot less than an aga. We can control the temp really well. The house is always cosy but never too hot and we always have hot water. Our neighbour has an aga and her cottage is really hot.

Ours seems to cost us about £800 yr to run. IT does all our cooking, we have nothing else and all our hot water. You can get them to do radiators as well but we have a wood burner for that. Ours is very old and where we live we find we can only burn anthracite - the most expensive coal. But there are many other fuels which are much cheaper, its just where we live.

Ideally we would like to have an oil-fired one. Our neighbour on the other side is currently having a reconditioned stanley fitted for £2000. Its going to cost her £500 yr to run will do her cooking, hot water and up to 12 radiators.

They all add wonderful character to the home. Everyone hovers around ours and if you have to go down to the kitchen in the night the floor times and lovely and warm. I have a clothes airier in the kitchen which dries all my clothes overnight, another bonus.

Neither of my kids has ever burned themselves. Tehy are aware it is hot and learned not to touch. They are so aware in fact that we don't bother with a fireguard in front of the woodburner either. They have both been around a rayburn from birth.

HTP. If you've got any other questions about them then fire away.

I hate the Aga in our house but no time to post now as ds needs me, will write more later I promise! Haven't read the other responses but I bet they all say they're fab...

think you either love 'em or hate 'em...

Princess peahead has one I will email her

another aga fan here I'm afraid. have an oil fired one in the house we moved to in the country in December - was most unsure about it but I'm completely in love ith it now. It is off for a month or so for the summer and I'm hating cooking on my electric hob! only have a 2 oven one, but you can cook SO MUCH on and in it at once if you need to, and the ovens are brilliant for cooking roasts, casseroles etc, much better than normal ovens, they somehow seal in all the flavour. The fact that they are on all the time is great - never have to heat an oven up, stick any ready meal in the oven and it is perfect 20 mins later, and it is like a warm little heart in the middle of the kitchen. wonderful walking into the kitchen on a january morning to have it all toasty warm - especially in the country where it always feels about 10 degrees cooler than in town!
also agree with everything about drying clothes etc - also very good for quick drying muddy and wet wellies, coats and jumpers, again something you don't seem to have to worry about in town and spend your life dealing with in the country.

no cons that I can think of. you will seriously regret not having one and will never regret putting one in. (also on a practical level selling a country house without an aga is always a sticking point - people factor in the cost of putting one in).

ps no more oven cleaning - ever!

Hi again Gem. IKWYM about Agas being like a religion, they really seem to provoke strong opinions in people. To prove the point, here is my personal rant - warning, it's long!

OK, the disadvantages so far, for me, in no particular order:

We have a 2 oven, 2 hob one. I dislike the fact that if I want to use the top I have to either use the left hot plate, which boils things very* quickly indeed or use the right simmer plate which is like a gas hob turned to its lowest setting or something and just about keeps things warm. So there's no in between it appears, just a very hot hob or a not-at-all-hot hob. Give me 6 gas rings which I can use simultaneously and at variable temps anyday.

• The top of ours gets dusty and since it's on all the time, it's a PITA to clean. Imagine putting a damp cloth over the top of a still hot oven and you get the idea. I suppose you could turn it off, but what a pain and who wants to?
  
  
• Which brings me to turning it off. It's summer now and we don't have another hob (although I do have a microwave which is also a combi oven so I could use that I suppose as a replacement oven) so if I turn the Aga off I won't have a hob. Since I can't imagine managing without one (pasta, boiled eggs etc) I can't turn the darn thing off and our kitchen is therefore too warm atm.
  
  The ovens. Hmm, well I suppose the top one has been OK for roast chicken, potatoes, roast veg etc but I haven't managed to get the hang of it for cooking something like a cake. The top of the top oven is blistering hot so fine for warming focaccia, doing a pizza etc but I haven't yet worked out cakes etc, partly due, I admit, to my own impatience. You have to get something called a cold shelf and put that in the oven above the shelf you are using to lower the temp for things like cakes. I did once and obviously misjudged it since it wasn't cooked in the middle. Now, you could say that's my fault, not the Aga's but I've never f*ed up a cake in a conventional oven in my life before and I'd rather turn a dial and trust that the oven is going to go to the temperature I want than have to mess around with cold shelves and working out temperatures. Maybe that's just me being impatient and lazy though. Probably!
  
  I've never used the bottom oven since it seems to be for things like slow cooked stews and I don't really cook them. Therefore I'd rather have the space for more 'proper' (i.e. non Aga) oven really. Actually, I'd rather forget the Aga and have a double oven each with its own temp control, now that would be useful.
  
  As you'll have gathered I hate it, hate it, hate it and would never spend my own money on one (we're renting). If I ever go to buy a house with one in the future, I'll be haggling for them to take it with them and reduce the asking price by £6k or whatever the damn things are worth. Give me a brand new gas hob and double oven any day.
  
  OK, there are a few advantages but I think you could get most of these some other way:
  
  
• Yes, it's always on but who wants their oven always on? Big deal, you want a pizza, turn your oven on 10 minutes before you want to cook it. Or get an oven that warms up quickly.
  
  
• Yes, the overhead drier is useful and dries things quickly but so does a tumble drier or a line. £6k is a lot for an airer!
  
  
• Yes, the kitchen is warm but it is now too, in the height of summer, unless I turn it off as above. A radiator would achieve the same effect and be easier to dispense with in summer.
  
  
• Ours is gas and there's nothing else running off it. Since the rest of the house isn't heated, I can tell you that the Aga alone (i.e. without radiators ) does NOT keep the house warm. The room it's in, yes, but the rest of the house, no. Never again will I move into somewhere without central heating.
  
  I wouldn't worry about the 12 month old and baby as a downside though, they'll work out it's hot and realise not to touch it I should think so I wouldn't let that count against an Aga. After all, an oven is hot when it's on too.
  
  So I agree with your DH, they're expensive, hot in summer, useless for cooking and crap to clean. I can think of a million better ways to spend £6k and I enjoy cooking and would love a new oven.
  
  Oooh, I've been wanting to get that off my chest for ages now, in fact when I said "I hate this f Aga" the other day dp replied sarcastically, "do you really? Tell me more..." and I started to until I realised he was taking the p*. Apologies for all the terrible language but thanks for listening and DO let me know what you decide... HTH!

I would love an Aga, but we don't have the money. However one point for your dh is that a modern range cooker can look brilliant in contrast with a traditional kitchen. Take a look in some of the top Kitchen mags and you will see.

Also you can now get dual fuel AGAs. Traditional style with extra gas hobs as well as the traditional hotplate. Worth checking out to getthe best of both??

However one point in your favour is that there is no heating at the mo, so althugh an AGA is a huge expense you can use it for the central heating, so could be considered good value.

WWW - take it you are not that impressed with your aga then

Ah well Gem, it made me feel better anyway! Katherine

my Mum is a recent AGA convert, they live in an old house in the country and she said the house "needs" an AGA. We lived there with them and the AGA for 4 months, and I can honestly say, that I am unconvinced! I can see the pros, it is lovely to have in the kitchen, the kitchen is the heart of the home etc, it makes delicious food like stews and cakes and pies, anyhting that needs doing in an oven, BUT I love to cook chinese and curries and loads of stuff that needs a good gas ring, and the rings on the AGA are rubbish for that. It seems to me to be a very expensive way of making the kitchen friendlier!

Modern AGAs are not supposed to "leak" heat, so they are not designed to heat up the house, and although it heats the kitchen, I don't think it will keep the house warm, and I'm not sure you can run a heating system from one.

When my mum got hers she went to an AGA demonstration in the local AGA shop. If you do get one, an AGA or any other similar cooker, like a Rayburn, it is really worth going to one of the demos. They show you how to cook on an AGA, you need to rethink the way you do things, and if you do then it is easy, and if you try to use it like a normal cooker, it is much harder.

My mum has the 4 oven one, and I think that is much more flexible than the 2 oven. You can also get the 4 oven with gas rings on the side instead of the warming plate, but then where would you dry the washing?!

by the way, my mum lives in Cirencester (heart of AGA country) and the AGA shop there does the demos, and they are excellent.

Gem I started a thread on agas over a year ago and ended up buying a 4 oven one and I 100% adore it. It is my most prized possession, in fact my only prized possession.
Useless for cooking? Nothing could be further from the truth. Some say they take a bit of getting used to; I had no trouble whatsoever - It's somewhat intuitive but not hard. - somwhere in amongst the vast interior is a place just the right temperature for whatever you happen to be cooking.

WWW have you read Mary Berry's standard AGA cookbook? It details how you can cook everything. There is also a good instruction video which comes with a new aga. I will lend you mine if you would like it. Just contact me via mumsnet. I feel sad you are missing out on a fabulous cooking experience from having an aga thrust upon you!
For instance re. your problem about the chioce between very hot or just simmering hobs. The idea is if you want heat somwhere in between, use the left hand (boiling) plate but sit your pan off centre so it only partially rests on the hotplate. You can control the heat beautifully this way. Alternatively many pots are best heated on the floor of the roasting oven.
You do need fairly decent pans with heatproof handles and lids.

WHo says you can't cook curries and chinese food on an aga? ( I presume you mean stir fries) I do it all the time.

I was at Nick Nairns cook school last weekend and the head chef raved about agas, said they produce better roasts than any kind of oven.

Gem, get an aga! I feel excited about it on your behalf!

Just another popint - AGAs DON'T fire the central heating, ( but a Rayburn can) .
You can get an AGA to heat the hot water but there is no point in the added expense if you already have a perfectly good boiler which does that already. The agas which do heat water use more fuel, they don't just heat water as a by product of being on anyway.

WWW - that's what I should have done... be your doula - you give me your AGA...
I totally concur with what Japser says though.... I woud LUUUUUUUVVVVVV an AGA !

Jasper - aren't your kids your prized possession???