Gas aga vs rangemaster

[Jblakes]

Evening all,

Next project is to install a new kitchen, we dropped unbelievably lucky and got a solid wood cottage style kitchen for a fraction of the price (guy retired from owning kitchen shop for 40years).

So we are looking at what people thing of a gas aga? We currently have a rangemaster 110 which I believe is 15years old.

Has anybody got a gas aga?, they anygood. They look the part and would suit the kitchen/house just don't fancy forking 5k out on something that bloody useless.

 

[a twig]

We looked at this for our kitchen we are starting work on next year and with gas prices where they are and the prospect of further environmental legislation in the next 10 years we ended up going with a rangemaster 110 - electric ovens and induction hobs, and then just putting a small radiator into the kitchen.

 

[Jblakes]

Yeah the cost of gas and the carbon emissions is what's putting us off.

Our current range is all gas, which works perfectly week. Just a aga is well an aga .

 

[DampedOut]

Got an electric Aga for this place in the summer sales a few years back so 10% off. British racing green. Turn on a while before wanted but otherwise easy-peasy and standard Aga experience. Cost £7 or £8 in electricity on Christmas, going all out.

To be perfectly honest, everyone who gets to use the thing is an addict now. DH likes to call it an 8k toaster but uses it more than anyone and loves it second-most, after our dog. Turn back now, your wallet will thank you.

p.s. If you get one and if you turn it off in the summer or any length of time, put a chock of wood under the hotplate lids to avoid rust from condensation.

 

[Jblakes]

Hmm, I'm still on the fence. The wife wants one, so guess we will get one .

Does it heat the house or do you need help from ch or other?

 

[Kearn]

We’re having the exact same debate here right now as we finalise the kitchen plans… range or integrated. And if it’s a range, real always on range or glorified standalone electric oven ‘range’. The difference of about £5k is a chunk, but then we’ve never lived with an always on lump and don’t really grasp the benefits…
we run on oil and electric, no gas - so it’s electric ovens and induction hobs for us whichever route we go.

 

[ChrisDHFH]

I have had a gas Aga in the past. The running costs are high as it is running 24/7. I found it couldn't cope with large family meals, not having sufficient heat capacity to handle all of the cooking required. It could only be used for 6 months of the year as it heated up the kitchen too much in the summer. I’m really glad that I don’t have one any longer.
In my view a gas Aga is expensive, inefficient and a poor choice for cooking.

 

[AdeyB]

We bought our house just over 12 months ago and it came with a pre-'74 Aga in good working order. I nearly fell over at the first month's gas bill! It was in a small-ish kitchen, which was very hot due to the Aga; the rest of the house was cold. We have knocked through into the dining room to make a much more useable space and decided to keep the Aga now it's heating a more useable area.
Just done Christmas dinner for 15 on it and it cooks food beautifully.
I stripped the Aga over the summer (switched off May to September) and re-insulated the doors, lids and Aga-top. A nice chap came to service it and changed the thermocouple etc - All good.
(We survived the summer on an air-fryer, microwave and electric hob btw!)

 

[DampedOut]

Hmm, I'm still on the fence. The wife wants one, so guess we will get one .

Does it heat the house or do you need help from ch or other?

Ours doesn't heat the house directly; the boiler isn't built in, I mean.

And yes, it does create a lot of radiant heat. We made the mistake of installing very nice wood countertops in that room and the heat was enough to soften the wood glue close to the Aga. We had to have thick 10cm border pieces put in that are perpendicular to the main countertop grain. This has mostly worked. We'll move those countertops to the larder when that room gets done and go with a stone top in the Aga kitchen. I'd recommend that if you get one too.

The room is about 5 x 3.5m and the aga provides lovely warmth in the winter. Judging by the themometers dotted around the house, the radiant heat from it does spread through the house.

During the summer, it can get hot in the room but we just open a window. The benefit of being in Cumbria, it's always breezy outside.

As it's electric, we usually turn it off between meal times all year round and this reduces the running costs significantly. It's a relative who owns the house and lives here, so she has it on for long breakfasts in the mornings. When we're here, my husband, who loves to cook, uses every function.

It's a 4 oven R3 model. ...And I see now that the price for the 100 model has gone up by about £3,000 in the last couple of years. I don't know if I would go for one now at that price. Wow!

I do know there are plenty of people who sell refurbished ones or converted electric models, like Blake & Bull, though I can't tell you about their quality.

For us, one of the main points was that the house is large – 6 bedrooms – even if the kitchen is relatively small. And being in a country village, it seemed important for resale value that the house has that country vibe. We thought, well, for someone with 4 kids, they'll love it. Being electric, any potential buyers shouldn't be scared off since they could turn it on and off as much as they like too or resell it.

All that said, I'd caution against gas. Who knows what's going to happen with gas and legislation in the future.

 

[a twig]

I looked at the newer ones with the “eco” mode etc but then you have to remember to take it off eco mode 1 hour before you want to cook to get it back up to temperature, which I would never be organised enough to do.

Then I saw the even bigger one which cost roughly the same as a decent car where for “energy saving” it includes a standalone electric fan oven built in which can be used when the Aga is off and I thought at that point the whole concept had rather jumped the shark

 

[Kearn]

We’ve rather quickly scratched this off the list today with another kitchen planning session… just can’t find enough pros to outweigh the cons for either type of range… always on doesn’t mean it’s immediately cookable, so you still have to be prepared. We won’t need the extra heat in the kitchen and it would struggle to travel elsewhere into the main building as our kitchen is a Georgian addition. An on demand elec range, is just a standalone electric cooker much like our parents had… yet without the functionality and flexibility that a couple of integrated ovens plus an induction hob can offer. And at a larger cost, plus for us it breaks the aesthetic of the room. And the necessary 50mm gap either side is a guaranteed muck trap!

We did also consider the nuclear option against our existing plans, having a duel fuel oil powered one that dealt with heating and water too, instead of a new external oil boiler, but the cost and the impossible logostics of pipe work put paid to that very quickly!

We’re conceding that the kitchen will be a modern-ish approach that works for our needs given we spend so much time in that space.

 

[leucothea]

Getting rid of the electric Aga I inherited with my house was the best thing I ever did! Replaced with a beautiful Bertazzoni induction.

I've used gas and oil Agas in the past, and of course, these are less ruinously expensive to run.

 

[johnbanshee]

Hi

People practically give these things away. We have a large kitchen so can accommodate a working one for show - will have standard ovens & induction hob - but the AGA will work if required (that's the plan anyway)
.

 

[fernicarry]

will have standard ovens & induction hob - but the AGA will work if required (that's the plan anyway

We have an oil Aga thats usually on from Xmas to Easter-ish depending on what the weather does and induction hob and ovens for all year round.

It heats the back of the house, upstairs and down, it helps to heat the dining and living rooms, it keeps the gable wall bone dry and makes a contribution to heating the hot water. Sometimes we even cook on it... I can't see how this house would be habitable in winter without it tbh. It used to be on 365 days a year so its carbon footprint is now a fraction of what it used to be.

 

[lookseehear]

When we moved into our ~200 year old miners cottages we were pleased to see the aga had been converted from wood to electricity with a timer unit (apparently at some point in the past it ran off oil then was converted to wood - no idea why). Our oil boiler was 25+ years old when we moved in and quickly started having problems, so we thought we'd try and manage from February to April/May with just the aga and log burner. We loved cooking on it, but when we got the electricity bill two months later for £700 we decided to fix the boiler and switch the aga off. That was early 2021 and it's barely been used since. We switch it on in winter if we're having a lot of people over for supplemental cooking capacity, but even in colder spells we find the kitchen gets too hot with the aga on and with electric hobs and the regular electric oven going.

We offered it to a local company for free who service and refurb agas and they said people are paying up to £500 just to have them removed, so there's no market for a free aga, particularly one like ours which is probably from the 70s.

I understand it works for some people, but not for us. Too expensive and inflexible even if it does make the best toast in the world.

 

[Maria D]

We have an oil Aga thats usually on from Xmas to Easter-ish depending on what the weather does and induction hob and ovens for all year round.

It heats the back of the house, upstairs and down, it helps to heat the dining and living rooms, it keeps the gable wall bone dry and makes a contribution to heating the hot water. Sometimes we even cook on it... I can't see how this house would be habitable in winter without it tbh. It used to be on 365 days a year so its carbon footprint is now a fraction of what it used to be.

A lovely AGA came with the 1915 Edwardian house
I bought recently. It’s oil fired but we are planning on converting over to gas so if we keep it, it would have to be converted too. We’re 50/50 on whether to keep it but your post about the heat it provides has swayed me a bit. But the heat it provides might be on the expensive side. And I don’t really like the idea of having it on 24/7.

 

[CliffordPope]

Just a point - these days I think you need to have a variety of means available for the four essential home elements: heating, lighting, cooking and hot water.
All are vulnerable to various threats - weather, electricity power cuts, supply shortages and industrial action. The recent storms have shown the vulnerability of electricity supplies, and the risk of being totally reliant on it. You need more than a two ring camping stove to cook for a family, even assuming you also have a sufficient stock of expensive gas canisters. Gas heating is useless if there is no electricity to operate the controls, circulation pumps and valves.

We have short power cuts all the year round - even a flicker often disrupts a timer, quite apart from the winter risk of trees etc damaging power lines. The Rayburn, originally ancient when we moved here in 1985, was more recently restored, and burns wood, which heats a good part of the downstairs, cooks, and provides ample hot water. In summer the old gas stove (1935 model) works well, running on big gas cylinders (2 per year). Hot water by immersion heater on Economy 7 (1/3 price). We once had a decrepit parafin stove when we had a boat, but shortsightedly ditched that in the north sea in 1966.

Lighting is obviously by electricity, but backed up by oil lamps, candles, and a good torch.

 

[Lacan07]

Is it really more expensive to run a gas hob / cooker than electric, or is that just an Aga thing?

 

[fernicarry]

might be on the expensive side. And I don’t really like the idea of having it on 24/7

Oil will be more expensive than mains gas if that is what you are switching to. Prices tend to be quite seasonal as well as driven by global events so you can manage the cost somewhat by timing when you top up. We get away with one top-up a year as the 1000 litre tank is only used by the Aga.

Ours has a thermostatic control on the oil feed so you can control it to a certain extent. If you were more disciplined than me you could turn it down overnight and up again during the day to eke out the oil reserves. It takes a few hours to coll down and warm up so turning it off completely for a short while isn't practical, it really is 24x7 during the heating season.

To @CliffordPope 's point all it needs is gravity to keep it going -- oil goes down, hot water goes up (they don't all have boilers). You do lose the thermostatic control without power but it defaults to high setting which is probably what you'll want in that case. That was one of my main reasons for keeping it but tbh we don't seem to be that susceptible to power cuts -- touch wood. A large UPS or a small genny would keep your gas boiler going if that was a concern.

On the downside, the oil control valve is obsolete as is the "electric head" that modulates the flow. I've collected a few spare parts on ebay when the opportunity arose so I'm confident I can keep it going. The chap who used to service it has gone over to the dark side of renewables and its been impossible to find anyone else to touch it, they have a reputation for being fickle. Shame as he looked after it man and boy since fitting it here decades ago when it was moved from the manse two doors up. Servicing as I discovered is a bit of an overstatement All it needs is the coke scraped off the burner pot to ensure unrestricted oil flow and a new set of wicks once a year.

I do wonder how long heating oil will continue to be easily available what with the headlong rush to net-nothing. A decade ago it was a no-brainer to keep such a nice thing in our refitted kitchen. Today I might not do it.

 

[Flyfisher]

We've never been bitten by the 'Aga bug' so I have no direct experience of living with them, but I've known a number of friends who have one and the curious thing, to me as a passive observer, is how many Agas are also accompanied by separate ovens and hobs. One friend has an Aga converted from oil to electricity (apparently more efficient but at the cost of no longer radiating much heat into the kitchen, which I've always thought was the beauty of an Aga) but also has a dual electric oven, an induction hob and (of course) a microwave oven - all of which are regularly used. I guess the needs of a kitchen are something of a mystery to me.

There was an old Rayburn in our house that had been converted from solid fuel to oil and it provided the only heat in the kitchen plus hot water but used about £300 of oil each month - and this was back in 2007! We sold it on ebay for £400 and have never looked back.