Aga cookers. Have they lost their appeal since the cost of fuel went through the roof?

[jasper]

I LOVEED my aga in my last house.
I bought it about 7 years ago following mumsnet recommendations.

However everything has its price and the cost of fuel now makes it seem slightly obscene.

Thoughts?

Spidermama - Have you ever had an Aga?

Swedes I've known Agas. What's the point in a major appliance, on all the time, which can't even be arsed to heat rads and often not even hot water. Surely that's the height of guzzling decadence?

Have you ever owned a wood burning Rayburn?

BTW there are lots of very old Rayburns still working. It depends how you look after them.

Oh let's not bicker. We're on the same wavelength in so many ways.

My mother works for an oil company who service agas/boilers and she was saying last night that average oil costs per week for an oil aga/boiler is £60.

They are getting lots of people who want to cancel their contracts.

I still want one though.

Spidermama - Yes - a multifuel burning model that did all our HW & CH. It used to clinker up every 3 days, even if I refrained from using coal and burned wood all day and a scuttle of anthracite at night. Wood was insufficient fuel to keep it going all night. And it was too furious to cook on properly - far too hot inside and on top. It was the top model available at the time. This was 15 years ago and they may well have improved since then.

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I posted on another thread about this the other day
Our gas Aga costs a lot to run, no idea how muh as like Swedes's dh does our bills [crinoline emoticon]. It is a concern
However, we have no tumble dryer everything dries on racks and on the Aga, That was a conscious decision of mine.
We have no kettle or toaster which use up a lot of leccy.
The kitchen obviously doesn't need extra heating.
We inherited ours with the house and I thought it was just a silly status symbol thing and was very hostile to it initially. But we worked out it would be incredibly expensive and wasteful to replace it with another cooker so I learned to cook on it. Now I find it hard to imagine life without it. If we moved would I get another one? I'd certainly be VERY tempted. I think I'd sacrifice a holiday a year to keep it.

I have had both and while our AGA does our water our lovely Staney did heating as well and could be turned on and off so for us was much better, we inherited the AGA in our house and it has been turned off since end of March and won't be gonig on until December.

the man in the showroom said to us that the AGA was the rolls royce and the rayburn the mini....

I have no idea how much our gas aga costs us to run - we keep it on the lower end of the green block, unless I am catering for the 5000, and need some extra oomph.
We pay £70pcm gas, and are in credit in the summer, and in debit in the winter, with gas central heating and water.

I would not want an oil fired one, but v happy with gas. AS others have said, I pay less in electricity bills because of not using toasters, microwave, kettle and using td less than average.

I can't wait to get ours but I do have to ask (having never cooked on one before but being grimly determined that it's my sole cooking source during winter months, therefore earning it's keep ) do you really cook toast on it? I know you can and have tasted the toast but is it practical? Hadn't thought about cutting back on electricity bills through not using the tumble dryer as much ... it's sounding better by the minute!

My aga is mains gas run, heats all the (constant) hot water, I do not have a tumble dryer, just clothes racks in the kitchen nera the Aga, I do all my cooking on it/in it. I leave it on all year round as my kitchen faces north and I have draughty casement windows (can't change those, listed building).

Yep Millie1, toast is great on the aga. You can either toast on the simmer ring with the lid down, or get a wire rack thing and toast on the boiling plate with the lid down.

Aga wire toasters make the most brilliant toasted sandwiches as well.

Delighted to see so many other ladies in their bodices and cage crinolines.

Also, jacket potatoes in the Aga are heavenly.
And in the summer I slow roast a glut of tomatoes in the warming oven overnight and then put them in kilner jars covered in olive oil to use for the coming months.
And in what other cooker can you do a roast joint, yorkshire pudding and meringue at the same time?

Feeling peckish now

agree with spidermama - Aga's aren't vastly superior.

I grew up with an old solid fuel aga and inherited a gas aga ( that ran on bottled gas!)

I live in an area without gas so have an oil fired rayburn that does my heating and hot water. It can set to come off and on automatically or can be left on "tickingover". It completly suits my lifestyle.

Considering it does heating, hot water, and cooking I don't believe it would cost me any less should i run an oven and boiler seperatly.

Does anyone else have a similar model as i would love to know which is the most economical way to run it....

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Who's going to start campaigning for a Rayburn/Aga owners topic!