Electric Aga

[Lesgrandepotato]

Looks like the cost of the twin wall will be as  much as a second hand electric aga / esse... does any one have any experience? What about vent pipes? an issue? or not needed? 

[Mr Punter]

I once had an Aga.  Total pain.  Very high running costs and was almost impossible to control.  At just the point where you want to get all the veg boiling and crisp up the roast potatoes and crackling it has lost the will to cook.  Mine was gas.  Hopeless.

[PeterW]

Which one ..??

 

Esse do a 13 amp one that works like a storage heater. Not brilliant but quite nice. 

 

Better option is find an older gas  or oil one and have the Newton conversion done on it - they aren't cheap to run anyway and the Newton one is the best of the conversions especially if you have PV. 

 

If you have gas then there are better makes than Aga - Thornhill do one that uses pellets and we seriously considered it. 

http://www.ecorangecooker.co.uk/

 

[Lesgrandepotato]

OK - so general range issues excepted - we have a rayburn at the moment (on gas) and have an oil Esse in the garage. It'll be accompanied with a pair of electric ovens so it can concentrate on only doing the stuff that ranges are good at! Slow roasting lamb etc

[Lesgrandepotato]

Its an Esse 13amp I'm looking at, the oil Esse I had planned to fit seems nicely built.  No gas in our house - well not from a pipe anyway :-) 

[ToughButterCup]

The issue with both of them is running costs.

 

Life has moved on since they were 'normal' (Posy Simmonds, Tresodit , jus' douun 'n road from @SteamyTea) But man, for your place (palace) it suits the image. 

You can slow roast a Gremlin in one: indeed my mum once forgot she had put the best part if one of our billy goat kids in the slow bit for a complete day and night: nowt much happened as a result. It was delicious.

 

And there'd be no need  in your place for any other heat source.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, recoveringacademic said:

jus' douun 'n road from @SteamyTea

What Berkshire, it is 250 miles away, unless she is on holiday and a dressed as a Pirate to help keep up the Cornish tradition of failure.

[Ferdinand]

We had an Electric Aga (vintage perhaps 1998). Big one - 2 oven traditional electric ovens in the 'storage heater' but, with an add on with 2 more ovens and with an add on with 2 more ovens and a propane gas hob. Cost something like 14-15k (fitted !). Running costs were ££ but we were off mains gas and annual energy etc bills were the best part of £3-4k anyway in 2010 even being economical - the AGA was probably £600 of that. Was a 500sqm house going back up to 400 years.

 

The traditional AGA ovens work well for some things that are surprising, such as using cast iron pans on the oven floor (far cleaner for a fried breakfast since all the splatter self-cleans off the oven wall rather than landing in your kitchen). They do a 3-pin plugin version.

 

I can see an Aga working well with PV solar if your house needs the heat.

 

I do not think we had *any* vent pipes or cooker hoods. Just a stonking iron sheet blocking off the old chimney above. 

 

Incidentally, the beam directly above the front of the Aga is made of fibreglass - cosmetic covering for a steel. 

Ferdinand

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2017 by Ferdinand

[gravelld]

Only two good things to say about Agas.

 

They do cook beautifully. Different way of cooking, but it's quite fun learning.

 

The electric ones are at least efficient at the time the energy is demanded (whether you actually need to use the energy, so whether they are efficient at the point of use, is another matter). Better than the standard oil ones, which are about 55% efficient.

 

Can't see them working well with PV - the energy demand would be off the scale greater during winter. Look at the numbers here: http://www.agaliving.com/aga-range-cookers/aga-running-costs and that's the optimistic manufacturer's "MPG"!

[SteamyTea]

21 hours ago, Lesgrandepotato said:

Slow roasting

 

18 hours ago, recoveringacademic said:

slow roast

 

8 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

2 oven traditional electric ovens in the 'storage heater' but, with an add on with 2 more ovens and with an add on with 2 more ovens

 

4 hours ago, gravelld said:

Different way of cooking

 

Yeah right, so great for Christmas lunch for all the extended family, as long as you start at Harvest Festival.

 

These things really should be banned.

[gravelld]

I found if you up the thermostat overnight it would be ok. But then, that's an oil one. Were you using the E7 version?

[Ferdinand]

17 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

 

 

 

 

Yeah right, so great for Christmas lunch for all the extended family, as long as you start at Harvest Festival.

 

These things really should be banned.

 

Not quite - depends.

 

Great for toast, too :-o .

 

It needs to be used. If not, you have a large lump of iron sitting there.

 

@gravelld said

I found if you up the thermostat overnight it would be ok. But then, that's an oil one. Were you using the E7 version?

 

We were all electric except for the Aga hob (gas was quoted as about 15k for pipes in 198x as it was about 500m away), so 10+ storage heaters.

 

But I am not spending today defending Agas .

 

(Declares victory and retires from thread)

 

F

 

Edited August 30, 2017 by Ferdinand