Gas consumption - AGA

laxeylady

Hope someone out there has experience of old converted to gas agas!! We inherited one with the new house, and love cooking on it (so dumping it not an option at moment). We watched our gas and electric meters like hawks for the first couple of weeks because we were also running storage heaters on economy 7 and were terrified we would be in the red very quickly. Well we ended up turning off the heaters because the cost of running against the actual heat left in them by the time we got in at night was just plain stupid. The aga we left alone and monitored, and we have figured that its costing about £2.50 a day to run (this does not fluctuate). This seems quite high to me (gulp) as we have spoken via forum to other owners who say theirs cost about £1.50 a day. The top of the aga is very hot, and the lid of the boiling plate is too hot to touch. Would it be worth investigating its insulation or is this perfectly normal? Thanks for any advice you might have.

Cardew

Much as Aga stoves are loved by their owners, they belong to an age of cheap energy.

laxeylady

So you think we should just suck it up and move on? I know gas prices are rising and its a prewar model so not efficient - but it looks lovely!:embarasse

Cardew

I really don't know enough to advise, but the sentiments here are in line with what my AGA owning pals state. The first one is oil - but the same principle applies.

http://property.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/property/interiors/article3721176.ece

http://www.aveccookers.co.uk/aga-cookers-history.htm

laxeylady

Hubby is trying to talk me into a solid fuel rayburn, but he aint the one that will be cooking on the flipping thing so we have reached stalemate. We can't afford a new efficient gas rayburn to do our heating, which would solve two problems really, so it looks like the crusty old thing gets to stay (and the AGA too :rotfl:)

penrhyn

You could invest in a cheap electric kettle, microwave and a Remoska.
Turn off the Aga for the summer months and just use it in the winter when all the heat it puts out will help heating the house.

Canucklehead

Hi,

Is it a 'wet one'?

What temperature are you running it at?

GSR.

laxeylady

It heats the water - is that a wet one? (means something totally different where i come from! :rotfl:). We have it set at 5 on the gas dial thingy ( a don conversion stuck on side) and the hot oven is about 230 deg. We were told to keep the mercury in the middle of the gauge so that's what we did. We are open to any advice that will curb our consumption a little, but was not really planning on knocking it off - it might never go again knowing our luck. Its definitely costing us more than we anticipated, but then just about everything else is too.

Canucklehead

Hi,

A wet one indeed! That would explain the higher consumption.If you want to reduce your gas bill it would need to be removed and the space filled with insulation to make it safe and be efficient (if that's possible with an Aga)
Your temp would be about right.
Aga (not surprisingly) do not authorise conversions so that may explain why yours would consume more gas that a purpose built gas one.

GSR

undaunted

Aga energy consumption (though these will not be converted models)
http://www.aga-rayburn.co.uk/agatech/gen1.htm

There's a site here that may be of help with conversion models etc
http://www.agadiyservice.co.uk/aboutus.asp