Aga advice!!!!

twiggy100 · 19 July 2008 at 6:49PM

We have an old two oven Aga (oil). I am desperatly worried about affording the oil for it this year as it really guzzles and oil is up to about 70p per litre.

The Aga was originally solid fuel, would it be worth reverting it back?

The problem is the family is out all day (work & school) so would it stay alight or do you have to feed them all day? Would it be a faff to do?

I dont mind cleaning the thing out ( we have open fires as well so used to that!)
It heats the water as well as the house ( no rads running from it just ambient heat)

I'm really in a quandry with this and am considering selling it but it will cost so much to get a cooker sorted and then get electric rads.

Anyone got any advice please?

bryanb · 19 July 2008 at 7:00PM

My first piece of advice would be to think carefully before getting elec rads. Even if you reverted to solid aga fuel the cost of fuel would probably be more than oil. Is gas available? When you say heats the house, is that just kitchen?

twiggy100 · 19 July 2008 at 7:05PM

Its a small olde worlde two bed cottage. The hot water pipes run under the bedroom floors so we are toasty and warm without needing rads. We have a large open fire in the living room also. Its just that with the servicing costs as well as the oil I'm not going to get much change from 2grand this year and that scares the bejasus out of me!.

twiggy100 · 19 July 2008 at 7:08PM

We don't have gas yet. Got a quote from british gas at aroung 5 grand, gulp!

Stuckupahill · 28 July 2008 at 12:18PM

You're best bet is to ring around a few aga engineers to find out cost of converting back or replacing and do your sums from there....bear in mind solid fuel Agas currently can only run on top quality anthracite coal - so factor in the cost/availabilty of that - they won't run on wood...

There are gizmos out there which you can fit to your aga to reduce your oil consumption - google search "snugburner" for example - there's a few others too i think...though i've no idea how well they work....

Aga are researching a pellet fuel version - but that's likely to cost quite a bit when/if it comes out...

Another option is to replace it with a used/reconditioned range cooker which can burn wood and/or coal....we're getting as recondition rayburn
but there's lots of different types eg esse/wormsley ......
hope that helps

greenbee · 28 July 2008 at 10:45PM

Lots of Aga owners are saying the same thing... my parents have one (solid fuel that they converted to oil as they got fed up with lugging hods of coal around every day - generally one am and one pm), and they've worked out that even though they've changed to cheaper fuel it's costing them nearly £25/week to run (without the service)!

They've got a bigger house than you, so still need some alternatives for heating in the winter, but like you reckon the Aga keeps things pretty warm - the kitchen/diner, where the aga is, and the bathroom and two bedrooms above it don't use any heating pretty much all year round.

It might be worth getting a second-hand (or freecycled?) electric cooker if you have room (or a calor gas ring, portable electric stove, combi microwave) so that you can turn the Aga off in warm weather (assuming you've got an immersion you can use for the hot water). Or you could eat salad and not wash

You might get the service cheaper in the summer as well, as engineers tend not to be as busy. I expect it would be pretty pricy to convert it back to coal, and you don't know what's going to happen to the price of coal in future either.

tubbee2 · 28 July 2008 at 11:36PM

I don't know how easy it is to convert from oil to solid fuel but I have an aga that was solid fuel (now mains gas) and the cost to deconvert (reconvert?) was nearly £2,000 so that's out of the running. Before you get rid of the aga, turn it off on a cold wet summers day and you'll realise how much you'll miss it. Ours heats the kitchen, and the dining room, dries the washing and the wet shoes, warms various teenage bums, cooks pancakes late into the night (teenage staple diet), and I miss it like a member of the family when it decides to sulk.

Aga advice!!!!

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