Anyone got an AGA?

[Globalti]

Yes we have a gas AGA in British Racing Green. Fantastic thing and yes you can turn them on and off as the weather changes. They take a few hours to cool down or warm up. The constant flow up the flue keeps the kitchen well ventilated and dry.

You do also need a summer hob and oven for when the AGA is turned off.

 

[numbnuts]

We had one in the 60s burnt coke at the time, a few years later had it converted to oil, and the guy that did it trained me on how to do a full service on it, very easy to do, but very dusty if you have to pull out the burning chamber as ours was full of finely crushed sea shells.
p.s we never turned ours off 24/7/356

 

[Gunk]

I love these posts, next one will be "has anyone got an Orangery"

 

[Proto]

I love these posts, next one will be "has anyone got an Orangery"

I was going to post something about the difficulty these days of getting decent staff.

 

[Drago]

My place in Voe has a Rayburn. I'd have thought bread making would be eminently possible. I used to run mine on peat or less often wood. It would run on coal tool, but supplies weren't so easy to come by.

I'm no great cook myself, so cant really give a great insight into the cooking attributes of cast iron indirect heating stoves. On the plus side mine would pretty much heat the entire house over winter.

I understand Agas can heat your water too?

 

[Ridgeway]

My place in Voe has a Rayburn. I'd have thought bread making would be eminently possible. I used to run mine on peat or less often wood. It would run on coal tool, but supplies weren't so easy to come by.

I'm no great cook myself, so cant really give a great insight into the cooking attributes of cast iron indirect heating stoves. On the plus side mine would pretty much heat the entire house over winter.

I understand Agas can heat your water too?

Both Agas and Rayburns can heat radiators and DHW, Rayburns usually via a back boiler (old models) but as you say they’ll certainly heat a decent sized area, we use ours in between using the central heating during colder evenings in Spring and Autumn

 

[the snail]

Nice to cook on, great when working right. But pretty inefficient, expensive to run, and bad for the enviroment. A friend of mine has one. The oil burner is pretty basic, over time the insides have distorted (or perhaps were wonky to start with) so it's difficult to get the oil level right in the burner, over time it tends to soot up, and smoke and leak oil. Stinky old thing. Yuk.

 

[slowmotion]

We had one when I was a kid. My job was to shovel in a hod of coke twice a day and riddle the ashes out (You were lucky!). We had no central heating but in made the kitchen really cosy and it was the place in which we all congregated. As for cooking, it was great for stews, roasts and making toast, but pretty useless for anything else. It suited my mother down to the ground. She had zero interest in cooking apart from the weekly roast.

 

[Notafettler]

Not read rest of posts
Get rid, oil cookers are astonishingly expensive to run. Someone told me they burnt more than his centrally heating. His wife only used it when doing a big cook.
I assume no natural gas available?
LPG large orange bottle generally last a year. Don't buy the fittings for two bottles which change the bottles automatically when one is empty They often change when there is still gas in. I know of someone who delivers them and sells on the half empty ones.
LPG is for cooking and oil is for heating unless

You already have LPG heating and tank.
Also avoid calor. Charge for bottle rental and gas more expensive. Local energas bloke didn't charge me rental and gave me the different connector. Cheaper gas as well
In this case talking about blue bottles for greenhouse heater.

 

[Notafettler]

PS nobody will nick my gas!

 

[Notafettler]

Just remembered I did have an AGA years ago. Used wood or coal on it. It heated the water but the hot water tank was about 10 foot above it. Always boiling the water overflow went into alleyway. Neighbour avoided using it when we burning coal. Alleyway that is.