Patridge bantam chicken poorly foot?

[Guest]

I'm seriously thinking about an electric one - the new ones run on economy 7 and have an amazing programming system on them.

 

They allegedly cost about £11 per week to run which is obviously expensive for a cooker but would keep my downstairs warm as it's open plan and hopefully I'd only need to suppliment then with the log burner.

 

Last year I was spendign £300 every 6 to 8 weeks on oil - so far this year I havn't bought any but the house is pretty cold. When I'm baking etc the kitchen warms up nicely.

 

I also understand we could eliminate the use of the tumble dryer with an Aga - we don't use it much but in the bleak midwinter...

 

I'm actually thinking that if I did buy the Aga I wouldn't use it in the heat of summer, its that time of year when I cook less and eat more salads and there is a good kitchen in Mum's annexe which I could use instead for the odd thing - rather than overheat the house and fork out good money to run the aga.

 

As for the cooking - I don't do a lot of roasting but are Aga's good for baking?

 

Biggest problem is these are harder to find as secondhand bargains - the oil or solid fuel ones are easy to get hold of but these electric ones are not. I've done my research and found that some of the earlier electric ones can be converted to the economy 7 method.

 

The electric ones also don't need "installing" (They just plug in!) and don't need to be serviced every year like the others do.

[The Dogmother]

I don't know anything about Agas Pengy, but Phil's folks have a wood burning Rayburn at the farm and it heats the whole cottage, supplying the hot water. His mum cooks on an electric cooker some of the time, but uses the Rayburn too and it turns out fabulous meals.

[Omletina Kyckling]

I have a Rayburn (gas powered) which is effectively the same as an Aga, and it is fabulous for both baking and roasting....whatever you cook in it comes out lovely and moist. If you go to your local Aga shop, they run free courses on using Agas and this time of the year they run Christmas courses.

 

Have you thought about a Rayburn? The reason I ask is that they can also run a radiator or two and your hot water - my Rayburn has a built in boiler which heats the house, and also the hot water and I have radiators in the bathroom which are the heatsoak radiators for the Rayburn so they are permanently warm. I simply turn it off in summer when I don't need it....

[MedusA]

I looked at Agas, but the body depth was too great for where I wanted it, so I bought an Esse. They are an "older" brand than Aga and have a "dogbone" hot plate, so you can drag pans from the boiling plate to the simmering plate (helpful if you have wrist problems like me) and the oven size is bigger than the Aga. I have a flueless CAT-enabled gas version, but they do plug in electric ones too. Worth a look, as an alternative to Aga. All cast iron ranges work the same way in principle.

 

I have a small 2-ring electric hob for summer, when I don't want to go to the bother of firing up the Esse, but I have to say, in the winter it's lovely, as it heats everywhere downstairs (except the lounge which is far away) and I have a wooden drying rack which I put in front of it and it does dry things beautifully. I haven't used my tumble drier since I've had it.

 

Good luck with the search.

[Guest]

Have you thought about a Rayburn? The reason I ask is that they can also run a radiator or two and your hot water - my Rayburn has a built in boiler which heats the house, and also the hot water and I have radiators in the bathroom which are the heatsoak radiators for the Rayburn so they are permanently warm. I simply turn it off in summer when I don't need it....

 

I did think about a rayburn but they don't really work for me as I don't have radiators I have warm air heating so if I were to go down that route I'd be looking to get a LOT more work done. You can heat hot water from an Aga but again I'm not really fussed about that - I get enough hot water for my needs from only having the water on for 40 mins a day which seems to be using very little oil

[chickenanne]

My parents have always had rayburn or aga, and personally I hate the things!

Unless you're in the house all day, then you are using power /fuel to heat the house when you're not in it. I think this is my biggest annoyance with them.

In the summer you'll need to turn it down really low which means will be slow to cook on, and is still costing you ££ and using resources you don't need. Alternatively, you'd need to buy a cooker as well and switch off over the summer.

I've no idea about electric ones, but to me they sound like they're basically a pretty storage heater.... would it not be cheaper to put storage heater in and get a nice range-style cooker that's more controllable for year-round use?

 

However...

If the aga would heat the whole of the downstairs for £11/week then that's pretty good; the only thing I would say is that different people have different ideas about what counts as "heating" an area - i.e. one persons sub-tropical is anothers' hypothermia-inducing nightmare!

I would be wary of the suggestion that it could heat your downstairs for £11/wk when oil was costing you something in region of £100/week (unless your upstairs has no loft insulation, or you live in an upside-down pyramid so upstairs is huge compared to the downstairs, or your boiler is criminally inefficent!). Can you find out a running cost per therm perhaps? Compare that to a condensing oil boiler?

[Karen & co.]

We have an Aga, we recently updated it to a four oven, the first one was in the house when we moved in and to start with I hated it I burnt everything in the oven and hadn't worked out the heat difference in the hot plates, but when we had our extension last year, we traded in our much loved red 2 oven for a racing green 4 oven

 

It is perfect for baking, no waiting for ovens to heat up, I can't remember the last time I used the tumble drier and washing left infront of it over night is dry next morning, ideal for forgotten PE kits etc.

 

If there is anything you want to know just shout

 

Karen x

 

PS the 2 oven did the hot water but it was always too hot, and the 4 oven without hot water is cheaper to run

[Sunshine]

Our house has an electric aga(a cream two oven one), it came with the house and we have all grown to love it. I love cooking on it(my method is shove it in and check on it regulary and when it looks done take it out-timers aren't used that often with my cooking).I also like that is on all the time (I always go into the kitchen when i'm cold)

 

We don't have another cooker in the kitchen so ours has to stay on during the summer which i guess is a waste of electricity but there is not much room for us to install a normal cooker.

 

We don't have a tumble dryer as we hang everything up above the aga and it drys really well and mum straightens all the clothes on the front first so not much ironing needs to be done.

 

It took time for us to learn to cook on and mum went on a course at an aga shop. Also its a pain when you find a recipe in a normal recipe book so it takes some trail and error to cook it for the right time. Now after having it for a few years i am able to make much better judgements for how long stuff needs to cook for. We don't have it serviced as often as reccomended and not by the aga people as we found a local man who used to work for aga and now has it own business and does it cheaper and quicker)

 

The only problem we have found is because we don't have another cooker, when we have it serviced(it has to be switched off) or it has to be repaired we can't cook on it for a few days until it has warmed back up. Also if we cook lots of food in one day it slows down so takes slightly longer. We found this happened at Christmas and New Year. Not a problem day to day.

 

I have no idea about the cost but i love cooking on it and don't know what i'm going to do when i move out and have to use a normal cooker. I'll have to learn how long to cook everything for again.

 

I would love an aga with 3/4 ovens though because with the two oven one its either really hot(roasting oven) or warm(simmering oven-we only use it to keep things warm). So something in the middle would be good.

[Jools]

We have the two oven economy 7 electric aga and it keeps our kitchen lovely and warm. I don't have a tumble drier because between the aga and the woodburner, I can always get stuff dry whatever the weather. I don't honestly know how much it costs us to run, but our electric bills aren't anywhere near as scary as your oil bills! If I had a choice, I'd go for a solid fuel one rather than electric, gas or oil, but that's only personal preference.

 

I'm not much of a baker so I can't say how easy they are for that, but they are brilliant for just about everything once you get used to using the ovens rather than the hob. I wouldn't be without mine now.

[Guest]

If the aga would heat the whole of the downstairs for £11/week then that's pretty good; the only thing I would say is that different people have different ideas about what counts as "heating" an area - i.e. one persons sub-tropical is anothers' hypothermia-inducing nightmare!

I would be wary of the suggestion that it could heat your downstairs for £11/wk when oil was costing you something in region of £100/week (unless your upstairs has no loft insulation, or you live in an upside-down pyramid so upstairs is huge compared to the downstairs, or your boiler is criminally inefficent!). Can you find out a running cost per therm perhaps? Compare that to a condensing oil boiler?

 

You are quite right about heating - I like sub tropical. At the moment I have the heating off and I'm using my woodburner and boosting with a calor gas heater in one room. If I'm in the kitchen I wheel the calor heater out there and boost it for a while till the oven takes over. Although for the last 3 weeks the oven was broken!

 

I'm not fussed about heating upstairs - we have warm snuggly quilts and a little halogen heater than can give enough warm to get you dressed.

 

I wouldn't expect the aga to heat the downstairs to sitting comfort but to stop it being like walking into a fridge - the stairs can be shut off and the kitchen should be at the right temp whilst the study would be warm enough to use without freezing my extremities and the lounge would be good with just the wood burner on in the evening.

 

I'm not going down the route of storage heaters - Mum has them in her part of the house and already our electic bill is £250 PER MONTH although I think they may have gone too far with that and it will come down.

 

I have a determination NOT to use the heating before January when I'm sure I'll have to put it on low to stop the pipes freezing. The loft is very well insulated and EVENTUALLY (when we get to the top of the queue!) we will get cavity wall insulation. Trouble with this house is that it has a large extention all across the back - basically three extra rooms and there is MASSES of glass - which is not heat efficient, downstairs there are three sets of french doors across the back, a huge bay window in the lounge, a wall of glass in the hall and upstairs another wall of glass on the landing.

 

I love this house but I don't want to go broke trying to heat it! I do intend on staying here until I retire to the sea (I can't see me living in a 4 bed detached with granny annexe all on my own!) so something like an aga is a good long term investment. The space is there as I already have an electric range cooker, which I could sell for a few bob. I can actually see this Aga as a green solution as I still have my eye firmly on solar PV panels to - waiting to see how the neighbors are doing with theirs (they also have a windmil!).

[Ms Marple]

My parents have always had rayburn or aga, and personally I hate the things!

Unless you're in the house all day, then you are using power /fuel to heat the house when you're not in it. I think this is my biggest annoyance with them.

 

 

Equally you could consider that keeping the house at an ambient temperature all day could be similar in cost to having the heatin g on full blast all evening - just less unpleasant.

 

I have not been an aga owner for very long(!5months)but love it. We live in a rambling detached 1904 relic on three levels. The kitchen is in the basement along with a morning room and a hallway. Although there are two rads as well as the aga - so far we have never turned them on as the aga is enough on its own. We are having a woodburner fitted next month which I am hoping will reduce our radiator use greatly on the other two floors.

Hte aga is great for roasts and baking - once you have taught yourself how!! Still learning here. A problem can also occur when you leave things in and forget about them - easily done as there are no cooking smells with an aga - I love this! We don't use an electric kettle or toaster. You have to learn to minimise your use of the hobs and maximise your use of the ovens - they teach you this on an aga course.

Great for drying clothes and reducing ironing too. I would not swop it now( except for a four oven version!).

In summer another means of cooking would be an asset - we currentl have only the aga- i soon learnt how to manage with it turned down low. For next summer I intend to have another cooker fitted though.

[miffy]

Just wanted to say how fab our 2 oven aga is. It came with the house , and as we have been here a year now I have a better idea how much oil it is using. We use aga and a wood burner in the evenings for our heat in the house, the annex has oil central heating which is used at various levels 24 hours a day. Our oil consumption more than doubles in the winter when the central heating isn used in the annex (its a small annex, kitchen, lounge, bedroom and bathroom) . It also does all our hot water for the house and the annex!!

It certainly took a while to get used to cooking differently, I recommend going to 1 or 2 aga demonstrations, as you need to use the ovens rather than the hotplates as much as possible.

I dont use, tumble dryer, toaster (worth an aga for the toast ) elec kettle or microwave anymore.

Of course we would love a 3 0r 4 oven but unless we have a lottery win it wont happen.

[chickenanne]

... I do agree that they make brilliant stew/pot roast/etc, and they're a genius way of avoiding ever having to iron again.

My Dad's does heat the kitchen (which is huge) and he has a woodburner in the living room, and the heat does rise to the bedroom above the kitchen is a nice temperature. But not the rest of the house.... he still needs central heating in the worst of the winter.

POSSIBLY if the house was more open plan/modern and smaller and somewhere not as cold (i.e. not N Scotland) then he could manage without any other heating...but I still don't agree that they're an efficient way of heating the house, unless you can use a woodburning model and have your own supply of logs.

Cost wise, the purchase /installation etc alone would buy a lots and lots of oil, and a condener boiler.

I can't help but see them as a lifestyle option, not a heating option.

[Guest]

Thanks all - lots of food for thought here.

 

Upgrading my current heating system is not an option the boiler is only about 3 years old its the system that's inefficent - it blows warm air all over the house, but there are not enough vents to effectivley heat anywhere except the bedroom. Frankly I'm not fussed if I NEVER heat the bedrooms - I don't even use 2 of them!

 

When the heating is going full blast and I've turned the thermostat up to 30! I still find it takes hours to warm up the house to anything approaching comfortable. Lighting the woodburner in my lounge early afternoon is far more efficient to heat the lounge but leaves me with "fridges" for the rest of the downstairs. This is what I want to overcome.

 

I'm also really into my cooking now so I could get to love the aga cooking method - I hear good things about it!

 

All I need to do now is find some money.

[chickenanne]

OOh, my sister has a blow air system (hot air blown from floor-level air vents) and hates it, too! She's the same - boiler is perfectly OK, but the vents system is terrible.

[Guest]

LOL - glad I'm not the only one! Last year I spent a small fortune on oil but it I wanted to be warm I still had to light the fire - hence my reluctance to put the heating on. I'm also VERY tight with money and I live in a house which is far too big for me but I like space - I don't like to pay to heat space though!!!

 

Mind you at the moment I have 2 heaters on. One to warm me and one to warm the dough for bread. hmmmmm. not very energy efficient methinks! Now if I had that aga the dough could rise in front of it.

[MedusA]

Now if I had that aga the dough could rise in front of it.

 

Very true! Ranges are the most wondrous things for baking bread. I love my Esse to bits. It was so cosy in the kitchen yesterday evening I didn't want to leave it!

[Muppet81]

A friend of mine recently got a lovely cream 4 oven Aga - electric with the AIMS (programming device). She loves it and it does keep the place lovely and warm, dries the washing and turns out wonderful meals.

The one word of warning though is that she is using around £125 a month on fuel.