I don;t think this is money saving...

Agapanthus

I always dreamed of having an AGA. Then, 35 years ago, we moved to a house which had an AGA already installed.

OK, it's expensive to run. But, the kids learned to cook on it when they were very young(no naked gas flames, no having to turn the oven on to preheat before cooking). By the time they were 11 or 12 they were producing the family dinner once a week (well, I was working full time then). Our Siamese cat adores it - he has his own cushion on the kitchen floor in front of it.

Learning to manage it takes a while: you can't adjust the oven, so if your recipe needs a hot oven, you just cook it at the temperature you've got, but leave it in for longer. If it needs a cooler oven, you leave the oven door ajar. You may have the wonderful experience of telling the your dinner party guests that the main course will be a little longer, as the wind's in the wrong direction!

My sister has recently acquired an AGA and writes to me that she has discovered the secret of cooking on it: by the time dinner's ready, you've consumed so much wine that you no longer care...

Ours is now elderly - its enamel is scuffed and it's an unfashionable colour. But... it make superlative meringues and the kitchen is just so welcoming when you come home...

SnowyOwl_2

My parents are on their third range...don't think any of them have been Agas, but they are the same idea. The first one came with the house, built about 120 years ago. That got removed in the early 80's nice shiny new one arrived to fire the newly installed central heating. It was solid fuel. My mother hated it with a passion...took forever to light, really hard on fuel so she and my father were forever chopping logs, had to be let go out completely regularly to get the ashes out, had to be lit in the summer for hot water unless you used the immersion (big bucks!). That one got the boot and was replaced with an oil fired one. Now this is their idea of perfection...v.v.clean, can be turned on and off as required, oven temp is controllable, gives off stacks of heat when you need it to. They live on a farm, can't imagine a farmhouse without one TBH!