Cooker help: get an Aga or not?

I have one and have had to re learn how to cook.

They are great but when I have a new kitchen installed I will put a seperate gas hob in so I could turn it off in the summer.

Also it is really expensive to run with gas prices at the moment.

Another plus point is that you don't need to clean inside of it.

Oh and slow cooked food in the Aga tastes the best

We have an Aga and it does keep our kitchen toasty warm (ours is oil based so has no option to turn down / off in summer without having to do the whole restart hassle)

It is a big change learning to cook on something which has two temperatures (very hot or not really hot) and all the faff with the cold shelf for baking BUT it does great casseroles / stews and so on in the bottom over (just leave overnight and forget about it) and makes the best yorkshires and roast potatoes

It is VERY expensive but does make a kitchen feel very homely (people always migrate to bums against ours) and we don't really have any other heating on downstairs (ours is an old cottage so we have the Aga, some stoves and two bedrooms which have central heating)

If you do go for it, I can let you have the titles of the cook books I find most useful

My parents have an Aga and its one of the things I miss most about living at home.

Several points (good and bad):

- my Dad was super dubious about cooking on one, and has easily converted, so i don't really see that as a problem. Likewise my Aunt.

- its amazing for drying clothes. I could put on a quick wash in our washing machine and be wearing the clothes an hour and a half later, thanks to the Aga.

- it is hot. My brother, in the rom above it, has his window open even now because of the heat in his room

- ours was oil and wasn't cheap to run. Mum claimed that it cut down on tumble drying/central heataing and things, but I would get an idea of whether you can afford to run it or not.

- we had a gas cooker and electric oven too, which were rarely used because we used the Aga so much.

- delicate cakes and stuff need a cold shelf, ecause the Aga is too hot.

- no preheating

I'm sure there are plenty more, both postive and negative. It does tend to bring out the evangelical, so sorry about that!

Thanks for the replies everyone. I still don't know what to do!

TWR/geekypants- do you/your parents cook on anything else? i.e. do they have a separate hob or cooker.

I'm really attracted to the idea of the kitchen being the heart of the home (which it is TBH in my current grotty kitchen, so maybe I'm being seduced bt the glossy Aga marketing) and I do a lot of slow cooking/soups etc for which an Aga would be ideal. According to Aga, a 3 oven gas model cooker only model would cost about £15 a week to run.

My parents have a seperate gas hob and electric oven, which are never used.

My Aunt has an aga andd no seperate oven at all.

My mum had an aga until recently but she's just replaced it with a range style cooker.

She found it was toasty in winter, but excessively hot in summer

was good for drying clothes on, but there is always the tumble dryer

And it was a bit unreliable. A big meal, like a Christmas lunch, or a roast for lots of people was always accompanied by shouts of "such and such is all ready, but the aga has lost its heat, and so and so won't cook"

The final straw was that it had become very expensive to run, with energy prices increasing.

She is delighted with her new cooker

I would only have one if you have a huge kitchen- I find them too hot in summer (although haven't any experience of the sort you can turn down- I don't really understand how that works). My parents have one which they love- there are so many things about it which are marvellous, as everyone else has listed. It's not hard to learn how to use one. However, they also have a separate gas hob and a separate electric oven and hob which they use in summer when the Aga goes off.

If you get one, a 4 oven one is infinitely better than a 2 oven.

KN, my kitchen is about 15' x 15' so not huge but not tiny. I haven't room for a 4 oven as I would have to sacrifice too much worktop, I think. The kitchen has a slightly odd layout because it has 3 doors in it. If we go for one it will be a 3 oven which has the roasting oven, simmering oven and baking oven but is the same size as a 2 oven. I'm not entirely sure how this timer thing works but basically you can programme your Aga to be at optimum cooking temp at certain times of the day and then reduce it to "low" at other times and "slumber" over night or on holiday to reduce energy consumption and heat output.

Gah. I think if I'm sensible a decent range cooker would do the job but I've fallen for the lure of the seductive Aga brochure.

Caro, thanks for your comments too.

One thing is for sure. If I do go for one, the summer of 2009 will be THE hottest summer on record!

Being able to set the heat like that sounds fantastic.

Really hard call, I think- Agas are lovely. They give the kitchen a focus in the way that an open fire gives a room. For cooking alone I'd definitely go for a normal range-style cooker but an Aga's about so much more than cooking...hmmm, and I bet you have cold winters...

IIRC don't Aga do combi models now so that you get the best of both worlds?

We had one in our last house, 2 oven. it was great, but, we had to switch it off from end of may to october as the kitchen was far too hot. we ended up having windows open all the time, it was ridiculous really. we also had another oven for the summer when it wasnt on, but theres no way i d have one again. our kitchen was 45 feet by 30 something feet, and it used to get really warm. fab in the depths of winter, but awful when the weather was warmer. in a 15x15 kitchen, theres no way i d have one. oh yes, and turning it back on in autumn is a real ball ache, as is the servicing.

plus, ours was oil fired, and it was phenominally expensive to run. yes, you can turn it down, but then that effects the heat of the ovens and the hot plates. another negative is that your two ovens, as twr said, are one super hot, and one low-ish (like 150), so you have to adapat all recipes to suit, which sometimes isnt that straightforward. i wouldnt have one again, as to me the negatives far outweigh the positives. we used to get through a tank of oil in about 3 months ?

we have a smeg range now which is a double width oven with 6 burners, and it heats up to max (250) on fan in about 15 minutes. its definitely the best cooker i ve ever had, and i d recommend it to anyone.

Do you mean a heat storage Aga with a conventional module attached, Baron? It's the space that's an issue- it's too wide.

I can't remember how big it was. There's a good Aga showroom in the Mailbox in Birmingham if that's close to you.

Thanks Baron. There's a fab showroom near me overlooking the Yorkshire Dales. That's the problem. The showroom is too fab!

Thanks for your comments too, NickJ

Hopefully it ll help with your decision. yes, they are great, and really make the kitchen the focal point of the house in loads of ways, but boy, theyre expensive to run and maintain, and not that practical.

Thanks Nick, you've definitely given me pause for thought.

Seriously, dont underestimate the running costs, no matter what the aga person tells you.

We don't have another cooker / hob - we did consider turning it off and using the barbeque but this summer just wasn't nice enough to do it - we are on oil so it is expensive to run (but then we don't use other heating downstairs really) and it does mean we don't use the tumble dryer

I really like the fact its always warm - it means dinner just goes straight in and no warming up time which speeds things up (and means issues when I have to use a normal cooker ...)

I don't find adapting that difficult - each Aga is different you so need to get used to your own issues rather than just following a precise recipe

Mr Rabbit loves ours - I'm a bit more hesitant but think we won't get rid of ours any time soon

Thanks again, Nick. If I'm honest- the environmental impact of an Aga has been at the back of my mind too. There doesn't seem to be much point paying to heat the garden via permanently open kitchen doors come the summer if the kitchen is too hot. I am interested in this new timer thingy- the Aga Intelligent Management System- but it is new this month on gas models so there is not much info on how it works in practice.

Thanks all- it's been really useful to get some considered opinions.

Throwing another suggestion in the mix, we have a stanley a range, which is oil fueled but we can turn it on and off like an oven, but it also heats the house and hot water. we can also set the temp in the main oven to x degrees easily. the cooler oven i mainly use for warming plates and heating jam jars lol. it's much more of a cool heat.

advantages: i think they're cheaper, this came with the house. you don't have the aga summer challenges, it therefore uses less oil, erm the heating/ water aspect. erm no cries of "the aga has lost heat!) ours clicks on and off depending on the oven temp. (though the dial on the front reads, warm, hot and very hot)

we fill up our oil tank every 6-9 months. depending on how tight we've been. i don't have another oven but do have a steamer/ george/ BM to cook on. where we live doesn't have gas connected so we don't get a bill for that anyhoo. oil is expensive, it's about £300 a pop, then again i guess reduced electricity bills..

If you like the look of the Aga but are not sure you want to have the standard one - or pay the running costs - then take a look at the Aga 64 S series which is a conventional cooker which has three ovens and a gas or electric 6-ring hob. We have one and it is fab:

http://www.aga-rayburn.co.uk/122_138.htm

I was in your position 2 years ago Popcorn and posted on here and the upshot was I didn't get one.

I don't regret it. although I do regret getting a ruddy gas oven, which I did because I was worried about electricity power cuts in the country. but it's just not been all that. I got a stoves cooker - a range one - and it's great apart from the oven is about 15 degrees lower than what it's supposed to be. I've had the engineers out but the same guy keeps coming (he's a real whingebag) and saying it's within the accepted range of accuracy.

so I'd get an electric oven and gas hob if I had the chance again - but stay with a range cooker. Stoves or Smeg, I'd say.