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Anyone out there have the misfortune to have an Aga in their kitchen? We bought a new place last year, an Aga was already installed, which of course the missus 'had-to-have'. I knew diddly about them ( I thought it was just an ordinary, if rather large, cooker) and just let her get on with it. Anyway our gas bill is now £200 per month, and it can only because the damn thing is burning gas 24 hours per day. Short of taking it to the scrappers, or turning the gas off (making it a useless lump of pig iron - it allegedly takes 24 hours to 'heat up'..i mean wtf?) is there anything else I can do to make it more efficient?
Heat the house from it....
Maybe turn it off for summer but they are there to do what they do which is to heat the large kitchen and whatever part of the house that backs onto it and cook on.
Sounds about right for an Aga.
Try one on oil instead....
Heat the house from it….
And hot water.
We inherited one in the house we bought two years ago. They are expensive to run, but it's middle-class lifestyle choice. Ours is gas, and only heats the kitchen, we have rads everywhere else. We wouldn't be without it now.
Our total gas is nowhere near £200 a month. I think we average out £130 a month for gas and electric for a fair sized 4 bedroom house. Have you had it serviced? Ours was turned off* about three weeks ago, and won't come back on until October.
Think yourself lucky you don't have an oil one, they're significantly more expensive to run and maintain.
(*not off off, just right down to tick-over which prevents moisture build-up and corrosion apparently)
I used to be able to see the oil tank gauge dropping during cold days with our Rayburn. Never again.
Lovely things to run at full chat, if you've got the funds, but you're basically paying to keep a very large lump of metal hot.
We had a clothes airer above it, which was a handy benefit.
In summer we turned it off and used an electric hob. Ours provided HW and CH....and it was expensive to run
I moved into a place last year that had an ELECTRIC Aga as the only cooker.
It cost about £120 a month to run.
It looked nice and cooked beautifully, once you get your head round it.
Sold it for £2000 and bought a new range.
Saved a fortune.
There are a few companies that will buy it off you and sell one to some other mug.
You do know they cost at least £8000 to buy new?
I'd get it sold, they cost a fortune to run as above (from personal experience advising someone who had a lecky one)
Yes we have a 2 oven gas Aga and our total gas bill is about £95 a month. Bear in mind that the Aga heats the entire core of the building so you will be using the central heating much less. We turn ours off when the combination of Aga and solar gain through the SW facing bifold windows becomes too much; have just turned it off and we are now cooking with an electric oven and a NEEF induction hob, which is absolutely excellent. As proof of how much the Aga heats the house our heating, which is set at 19c on the hall thermostat, has been coming on in the mornings during the last week, which it didn't do when the Aga was lit.
Heating your water with the Aga is very inefficient and the boilers eventually rust and leak. Our water heating is mostly from the 20 tube solar array that I DIY installed about 8 years ago, in summer it gives us 100% of our water at 60c.
The latest Agas can be set to warm up shortly before meal times so the fantasy house in Scotland will be having one of those.
I have an oil Aga.
It makes me weep how much I spend to feed the thing! When I can afford it I plan to change it for something that looks the same, cooks the same... but heats up fast so I can turn it off when not in use!
Ours doesn't do the heating, other than in the kitchen, which is now rather toasty since winter has gone. It was nice in winter mind - the kitchen is always warm....
Here at Moont Towers we are still using our solid fuel AGA that was installed in the 1950s. I costs about £100 a month to run, it's riddling and refilling is something you get used to like brushing your teeth last thing at night and first thing in the morning. I couldn't live without one.
In my croft in Orkney, I burned peat in a big Rayburn. The fuel was free in exchange for a few days hard graft up on the peat hill. It's one of the things I missed most leaving the islands. Wood chopping became the natural replacement
Parents have an oil Rayburn (same thing but with a boiler in it) Don't think it's a lot to run but they use it carefully - it's only on in the winter when they can use the heating function which offsets a lot of the running costs, they would be running a boiler regardless. They have a gas hob and an electric oven for when it's not on all summer. One oil tank every 18months ish. Doesn't look a massive tank.
OP, do you have to use it, or do you have a 'summer hib' too?