In my mind the AGA is a great cooker. It works on the principle of a large heavy mass full of heat, if you stick something cooler and smaller inside (such as the Sunday roast), heat simply transfers from the large heat mass to the small one. There is virtually no air movement in the oven so flavours stay intact, food stays moister.
The design is thanks to a 1920s Swedish inventor, today it is still very similar to the original. Which means that energy efficiency is appalling (that is my description, AGA use the words ‘surprisingly economical’). An oil fired two oven AGA gets through around 49 litres of oil a week, and most people run them all your round. This means around 2500 litres of oil a year, or £1400 approx (at the time of writing in August 2012).
This type of oven takes many hours to reach cooking temperature, and because the vapourising pot burner has a tendency not to relight once turned off, most owners leave them on all year round. In the summer the kitchen is like a furnace. But for all their faults, owners tend to consider the advantages outweigh the costs and damage to the environment. It’s surprising how many customers I see who enthusiastically debate central heating boiler efficiencies, say how they want to be ‘green’ – and then I find an AGA in the kitchen!
The house and our crane for installing the flue
Anyway, for this installation story we are in a rural part of Horsham, Sussex. Our customers have a green oil fired AGA, and a Trianco boiler for the central heating. The AGA has been fitted with the optional hot water heating accessory, but this has been plumbed in wrong by an installer and doesn’t work.
They wanted to remove the AGA and fit a Heritage cooker, for which we happen to be an installation specialist. In fact, I have had one in my house for the last 8 years, so I am an installer and an end user!
The Heritage range cookers are made in Cornwall and use a pressure jet burner (oil) or a forced draught burner (gas) to give a modern cooking experience. They too have a large heavy metal chassis with cast iron doors etc but the warm up time is between 25-40 minutes (depending on how many ovens your chosen model has) from cold. The heatstore cooking experience is similar to other range cookers but the energy consumption and convenience are much better, because it only has to be on when you want to use it. The burners inside use more energy than a pot burner, but they are only used when cooking. A digital programmer is concealed behind a cast iron door, so if you choose, you can have the cooker ready to cook the the evening meal when you get home.
Our customer’s AGA was in perfect condition, but sadly the secondhand value of these units is now scrap and despite advertising in a number of ways, a buyer could not be found, so they gave it to an AGA reconditioner on the agreement that they would dismantle it and take it all away. Interestingly, there isn’t a lot of cast iron in one of these units; the base is a thin mild steel plate, as are the sides and the back.
Old cooker being dismantled
The new Heritage was in a pewter finish, and featured an optional 30Kw central heating boiler hidden inside. The boiler, if specified, works completely independantly to the cooker, and still has 2 ovens, like the outgoing cooker. NB: A standard Heritage without a boiler has 3 ovens. The Heritage was also specified with chrome low weight lids, and chrome fiddle rail and fittings.
A new Heritage Duette, boiler is LH lower door, ovens are behind right hand doors
As part of the job, we upgraded the heating system, added some extra radiators in the kitchen (because the cooker won’t be on 24/7 now) renewed the hot water cylinder, and replaced the chimney flue liner to take the new cooker/boiler.
Engine room nearly finished
The utility room was significantly larger without the Trianco boiler; we used the services of our skilled bricklayer (Rick the Brick) to recreate the stone external wall where the old boiler flue protruded.
New stone under window, the pointing is still wet
Access to the chimney for the flue work was by a truck mounted access platform; this is cheaper than scaffolding and because it doesn’t touch the building leaves no damage afterwards. Another advantage is that by the end of the day, it has disappeared. It also saves us climbing ladders!
With some new Honeywell programmable thermostatic controls, everything was ready. As both units were connected to the outside for their combustion air, the cooker and boiler are very quiet inside the kitchen, and apart from annual servicing should need very little maintenance.
Heritage cooker prices are similar to their main competitor, and start at around £7000. Installation costs are subject to a survey.
Cooker programmer hidden behind iron door
