Do you or ever have owned an AGA ?

They are a way of life and can be your best friend or worst enemy.

Unless you are committed they are just an expensive and financially needy hunk of metal.

I love my daughters, coming down in the morning to a toasty kitchen is a delight, the dog curls up in front of it, toast tastes wonderful and casseroles happily sit in the slow oven for hours.

However life isn’t a Joanna Trollope novel and someone has to pay the bills?.

Funny we were discussing AGA's at my knitting circle this afternoon. My best friend always loved hers, (mind you, she was a lousy cook!!). I hated ever being there and trying to use it, detested the lack of control of heat both on hob and ovens.

Yes, they warm the kitchen during the winter, but then so does CH!!!

Think these are very much a 'marmite' thing, although there does seem to be a lot of snobbery attached to them, but never see any celebrity chef using one.

We have one and the best thing about it is it keeps kitchen warm. It is also our central heating boiler. We had to have a gas hob put in as it took forever to do most things. I don’t think I would have one put in again.

We had a solid fuel AGA many years ago when DH was a farm manager. It truly was my best friend in the winter as it also heated the water and three upstairs radiators.

The children were all under five so I would dress them in front of it and dry clothes and nappies on the overhead rack. Our dogs had their baskets as close as they could possibly get to it and if you came indoors on a freezing cold day you would warm your bum up by leaning against the front rail.

There was always a kettle of water on the boil for hot drinks and topping up washing up water. I cooked endless casseroles, soups and delicious breakfasts and the hot oven was marvellous for bread and cakes.

It was kept alight for at least eight months of the year. I used an electric cooker during the summer and the immersion heater for hot water, which was expensive but at least only used when necessary.

It's true what they say about an AGA being a way of life and there was certainly no snobbery where ours was concerned. It was DH's first management job, wages were low in the seventies and we lived in a tied house.

I missed it like mad when we moved on.

I grew up with an Aga. It was a solid fuel one my parents had installed in 1939 when they got married. It was an old farmhouse where my grandmother had a black range before the installation of the Aga. It was the only method of cooking and my mother seemed to be able to control it perfectly making everything from fruit cakes to Yorkshire puddings. The bottom or ' slow oven' was even used as an incubator for new weak lambs. As children we used to sit on it on cold days despite warnings of ' you'll get piles sitting there'. I remember we even had a sort of mesh toaster for making toast on the hot ring and an iron with two bases which heated up on the hot plate and a handle clipped on so always a hot one on the go. It was riddled and stoked every day and never went out until the day my mother moved to a bungalow in 1973.

Are you talking about me?
Aga ?

Certainly no snobbery from my perspective, mine is a real workhorse. And what works for Mary Berry works for me. Celebrity chefs have no relevance to my kitchen. I had to wait a LONG time for my Aga and it didn't disappoint but you do have to understand that its a totally different way of thinking about cooking. In terms of boiling the kettle, the trick is to have one with a large base with not too much water in it and keep it on one of the domed lids (using an Aga mat obviously) That way the water is already warm and takes no time to boil, especially first thing in the morning. Though if you need a large quantity of water say for cooking pasta, it makes sense to use an electric kettle.
I did have a smile at the image of you sitting on the floor to move the shelves if I had to do that no cooking would get done! But I think you really don't love your Aga and we aren't going to persuade you....

I’m not a fan but have only used one briefly when staying in a holiday house years ago. They make the kitchen too hot to work in comfortably and take up so much space. I also find them ugly especially when they come in bright colours. They dominate the kitchen. I prefer the complete control I get from my electric oven and gas hob. In fact if I ever moved to a house with one I’d replace it straightaway.

I had a solid fuel AGA when we lived in Cornwall and had no problem with cooking - ran a tea room in the Summer and could turn out scones in the blink of an eye.
Sometimes I would put in baked potatoes and forget 'til the next day so had burnt bullets.
It was great for slow cooking porridge overnight. Heated all our hot water.
Should think it would be expensive to run now as the fuel was a special pea shape.

In 1974 we bought a small cottage built in 1750, it came with an old solid fuel aga, bearing in mind that I had never even heard of an aga, coming from liverpool terraces. Trial and error to make it light and I soon got used to it, definitely a slow mo way of life. It used to be wonderful for batch baking especially bread and casseroles. I could not cope with the heat from an aga now

We had a solid fuel Aga, apart from having to fill it , riddle it and cope with gale force winds causing havoc with it, not to mention often having wet Furnacite, we loved it for its warmth, we didn’t love using the hot plates and having the oven temp. go down though down.
And we had an electric cooker for the Summer.
I couldn’t justify the expense nowadays, it was different when the children were small and we had dogs, they all loved the warmth in our cold cottage and I warmed their clothes in it and around it before they went to school.
We didn’t have central heating in those days or double glazing either so it was worth having.

Apparently an oil fired cooking only Aga costs £1200 per year to run. That’s just for cooking and heating the room it’s in.

I had an oil aga and loved it, just shove things in and they cooked perfectly. Didn't need a slow cooker, just put stews into the warming oven and come back from long walks to a hot meal. Clothes dryer, bottom warmer - I do miss it.

But at 200L of oil per month, I wouldn't be able to afford it without serious budgeting now.

I've now got a tiddly electric cooker that takes forever to get to the right temperature.

I’ve got an Everhot electric range, which functions like an Aga, but runs off a 13 amp plug. Mine’s got two halogen rings too, so I don’t have or need an electric cooker as well. If you live in a cold house ranges are brilliant, I’ve got a large, cold kitchen which is open plan to the stairs, so it’s perfect for the location.
You need to re-learn how to cook things in the oven and on the hob, my advice is to get yourself an Aga cookbook Yammy. Once you’ve mastered the art you won’t want to use a conventional cooker instead because it’s just so convenient, I’d never go back.

Our AGA was put in over 40 years ago, we moved in 20 years ago and converted it to mains gas, we also had it renovated and it still looks as new. It heats the water for half of the house, is the only heating in our huge kitchen and I absolutely love it. We do switch it off during the summer as I have a combi oven and an induction hob but I really miss it and am so pleased when it goes back on. It cooks the best casseroles (bottom oven) and the best roasts (top oven) and does most of the ironing but I work with it and know it's strengths and limitations. I can put three saucepans on a ring if required but tbh if you are not a "cook" you don't need it. Just use a microwave and a hob but if you enjoy cooking, get to know it (I made lots of mistakes in the early days) and it will become your best friend.

We live in an old farmhouse and I have a gas range cooker. In other words a gas cooker that is wider than average.

I do not have an AGA and have never wanted one. Having grown up using a gas cooker, when getting a range cooker, gas was the only choice. Apart from familiarity, AGAs and the other cookers of that type are horrendously expensive £5,000 and upwards and I couldn't afford one, even if I wanted one, which I didn't.

I have used Agas on holiday, but never felt any desirre to own one. Quite honestly I think they are overrated in today's centrally heated homes.

Not an Aga, but my Grandma had a Rayburn and loved it. I learned to cook using it when I was a teenager and enjoyed its gentle versatility in comparison to my mum's electric cooker. Would certainly prefer one to my current fan oven which seems to cook things with an intense heat.

Quite honestly I think they are overrated in today's centrally heated homes

When we had ours installed Monica it was factored into the heating system: even in the hottest of summers we rarely even turn it down. We have a north facing kitchen so . it is perfectly situated. When we turn it right down for cleaning or when we go away, the kitchen loses all soul. If I want to bake a sponge or a batch of scones, the heat is there and ready, so super fast. They are not for everyone and yes, expensive to buy and run. But we live simply and make economies in other areas and I simply wouldn't be without it.

I am more than happy that other people should own Agas, I have no objections to them in principle, but we are away a lot and our kitchen is in a single storey extension and as far as I can see this type of cooker works best when it is on all the time, and as I said I grew up using a gas cooker, and just like Aga owners want always to have an Aga, I like to stick to what I know and am familiar with.

Most of us in rural areas don’t have gas, it’s horses for courses isn’t it. You don’t have to leave an Aga on all the time though, you just need to put it on sooner to bring it back up to full heat if you want to cook something on a high temperature.

I'd forgotten about it losing heat one Christmas Casdon, we had soggy roast potatoes.

My daughter had a Rayburn - I called it The Beast

Like you Yammy. I inherited an oil fired Aga with this house.
It certainly wasn’t a selling point for me, I was terrified of it, really would have liked to rip it straight out.
But I grew to love it, I really liked the simplicity of it, and my favourite place was leaning against it.
But it was tricky when we had a house full, it lost heat very quickly when the tops were up, so reluctantly, having had it for about fifteen years, we got rid of it, and bought a range cooker.
A word of warning. It was an enormous upheaval, just getting it out was a big job, and then, as it had heated the water, there were major and expensive plumbing jobs to be done.
If money had been no object. I would probably have gone for a top of the range electric Aga.

My family home had an Aga in the 50s. Initially it ran on anthracite eggs but later was converted to oil which meant less work.
It was amazing and I still miss having one.
My parents had a hob for summer use when the Aga was allowed to go out and also a small rotisserie type oven thing for roasting/ baking if required.
I have cooked on a massive aga for a group of 100 but you do need to be very organised if you are doing mass catering!
Meats cooked slowly in the bottom oven are meltingly soft btw... Crunchy toast and toasties are made with the use of a mesh "grilling" rack on top.

The aga is a friend.