Heavy Range Cookers

jonewer

I would agree about the wood fired thing. I heard a two oven uses 10lbs of wood per hour! eeek!

Oh well, I havent even bought a house to put one into yet so its all a fond but distant dream... (my wife thinks I'm crazy, for my 25th bday I went out and bought myself a new blender. Guess I'm just a kitchen applicance fetishist )

I have to conclude that they are totally, fatuously extravagant and problematic.

I want one more than ever!

majjie

If you look at a site like this one:

http://www.cast-iron-range-cookers.co.uk/

it lists a whole lot of heat storage range cookers.

The Everhot is supposed to be low on energy use and cost effective to run - it just plugs into a 13 amp socket and doesn't require the regular servicing of an Aga or Rayburn - and it's made in a water powered mill. It's still quite pricey to buy though and doesn't have quite the same good looks as an Aga.

The big advantage of Agas and Rayburns is that they're easy to find second hand and re-conditioned ... and relatively cheap!

Keldin

I would defnitely agree that an Aga/Rayburn is a lifestyle choice.
If nothing else it's a different way of cooking and some peole refuse to learn it, learn it and hate it, try to learn it and fail. I would say they are the minority and if you want one that is the only requiremnt to learn.

No they aren't as economical as a normal cooker but then a normal cooker is not as economical as a microwave so if you want economy buy a big microwave and cook everything that way. In fact ditch your kettle and boil all your water in the microwave.

The Rayburn as a cooker used to be for the farm workers house and the Aga for the big house. Rayburn wood burners can burn asolutely anything (so i've been told) but Aga wod burners need proper solid fuel.
Aga is generally cooker only but can heat water or run a rad or two. They only use the one burner so this is not ideal.
Rayburns are generall boilers as well and tend to have 2 burners so the second one is for DHW and central heating. You do get dry Rayburns and can use a dual burner as cooker only. If yo find a good cheap one and only want a cooker and are happy with 2 ovens then this is ok.

The main advantage of the solid fuel is if it is somewhere that you don't have gas, oil etc and have a wood supply and it is used occasionally.
For regular use you need oil if you can put an oil tank in and can't get mains gas, LPG (pricey) if you can't put an oil tank in and teh best option is mains gas (cheaper and quieter than oil) if you have it. You have a 13 amp electric Aga now but I don't know what that is like. I wouldn't mind an electric Aga that has a gas hob but I'd take a normal Aga over a standard cooker any day.

Talk to Barry at http://www.tradcookers.com Even if you don't buy a second hand one from him he will happily give you some advice (not too much if he is driving though which he seems to do a lot)
We were going to buy from him until the one on eeBay fell into our lap.

I have found a lot of people who have never used one telling people what they can't do and even people who have had one and I just think "thats odd - i've been able to do that"
I've never found it problematic and believe a lot of problems are from converted models such converted from oil to gas that aren't done properly or should never have been done that don't behave properly and people who just don't get used to how how to cook in them.

Feel free to PM me some questions if you like. I did a lot of research for ours including conversions, balanced flues, chimney liners, plinths etc

And in case you don't know - Aga's are broken doen into pieces and reassembled onsite and the Rayburn is delivered whole (it can't be dismantled) and they weigh about 400kg or more (thats 900 lbs in old money)


K

Debt_Free_Chick

Keldin wrote: »

I have found a lot of people who have never used one telling people what they can't do and even people who have had one and I just think "thats odd - i've been able to do that"

Too true! :T

The number of times I've been told that you can't grill crisp bacon in an Aga :rolleyes:

fruitbat_2

We inherited a 13amp electric aga when we moved into our house. We have an oil boiler for the heating, so the £15+ worth of electricity the aga used per week was just to cook with, once a day except at weekends, oh and it did keep the kitchen warm, but just the kitchen, and I reckon a radiator connected to the heating system will do this just as well, and far cheaper. Having never aspired to own an aga but getting one 'accidentally', I think we came at it much more objectively than people who've hankered after one for years because it's part of the whole Country Living lifestyle. Whilst I understand the 80/20 principle of cooking, I still found it frustrating. Ok so your pan boils quickly, but what then? Oh yes you put it in the oven, but then you have to take it out the oven every time you want to add something to the pan. And the ovens are not even wide enough to put a casserole in while holding the handles, I had to drag it out sideways with one hand (not happy doing this with a Le Creuset full of boiling liquid). Why have a narrow deep oven when a wide shallow one is far easier?
Perhaps if we'd spent years dreaming about having an aga and were going to own it for life, we'd have been more prepared to re-learn to cook, but we're pretty good cooks already and happy with our methods (and our pans) and it was never going to be a lifelong relationship, so we decided to get rid of it. For people who are at home all day, using the heat and baking cakes mid morning, fine. For people who have money to burn and don't care about their carbon footprint, fine, but it wasn't for us.
For what we've sold it for we have enough cash for a spanking new range cooker, hood, radiator, and a bit left over for the fitting.
Oh and if you haven't bought a house yet, please don't get too carried away, I don't think all kitchens can take an aga.

falklandfred

After a lot of research, we eventually went for the oil pressure jet Esse cooker. I think that they have made a lot of improvements recently and it is now very quiet indeed (the older ones used to roar, but you can hardly hear ours), the build quality is better that the Rayburn, it is cheaper, and - most importantly for us - it can be used with a power flue so you don't need to install one of those horrible chip shop chimneys.
The bid advantage of an oil pressure jet model is that you can turn it off in the summer and it still heats up to full cooking temperature in about 40 mins (using about 20p of oil in the process) and it is much more controllable than the vapourising models with no real drawbacks.

artichoke

hi

anyone got any experience of an everhot range cooker?

we will be using it to heat the kitchen too and are at home all day so it seems an ok choice - any opinions anyone?

http://www.everhot.co.uk/100_features.php

art