Our Aga is dead.

We’re looking an Everhot 110i as a replacement.

Any experiences of these mighty cookers out there?

What’s wrong with the Aga? They don’t go wrong very often and spares are available all over the place. Aga dismantlers and installers have yards full of used Aga bits that they can fit, since there’s been little evolution of parts over the decades.

What’s to go wrong in an Aga? (serious question, I thought they were just metal boxes)

oil burners
gas burners
warped bits
leaking bits
rusting bits

Fit one on my last job, very impressive, really nice thought out design features and apparently around half the the price of an equivalent aga? Don’t get me wrong I’ve seen probably more Agas than most and they are good but the prices are ridiculous, they seem to be more of a fashion accessory for the Cheshire set than anything else!

Any experiences of these mighty cookers out there?

Don’t these things run on electric and eat about 500W all the time?

Quick sum suggest that’s about £700 per year of electric there.

Feels like something left over from the 80s TBH.

Er… left over from the 30s actually! The AGA was invented for use by blind people, hence no controls. They can run on electricity, gas, oil or coal.

Email sent!

What can go wrong with an Aga; that’s what I thought 🙂

It’s a old standard 2-oven that was converted to gas in the dim and distant past. The gas value is leaking and needs replacing, that’s £750 + labour. The burner unit is a unique creation that won’t work with the replacement values so that’s another £500. The flue is 20 years old and the 2 gas engineers I’ve spoken to (whom I trust) say they have to fit a new one, there’s another £1000. So that’s pushing £2.5K just to get back to where we were with a nice but quirky cooker that’s expensive to run and too hot in the summer. Then the thing needs re-enamelling. The previous owner used a hammerite-type paint which was OK for 10 years but not any more, there’s another couple of grand.

Given a fully reconditioned replacement would be cheaper and we knew things had to change, we widened the search to new cookers that would keep the kitchen warm, do all the things an Aga does (dry clothes, warm cold feet, be nice to lean on) but be a bit more turn-off-and-on-able. The new controllable Agas don’t have the best reputation, the Rayburn 400 looks good but the ovens are small. Then we saw the Everhot, apart from the price it looks awesome – even The Internet doesn’t have a bad word to say about them. They appear to have been designed ground up as an efficient heat-storage cooker to run off a low power source (13A) rather than being a adaptation of a solid fuel stove. They’re not cheap but are less than Aga equivalents as they don’t attract ponce tax at the same rate.

If I had the place I want to do up I’d have the old one off you to mess with and make eco friendly 😀

You should be able to get a 13A conversion for the Aga. Our sheep farmer has one along with solar panels to run it. Used to be a fuel burning one as the flue is still there for effect.

but be a bit more turn-off-and-on-able.

I don’t think you’ll find a 300kg heat storage cooker will be turn-off-and-on-able. If you want that, then a normal electric oven and an extra rad on the CH.

. left over from the 30s actually! The AGA was invented

I was talking about the everhot with its constant high electric use.

The new controllable Agas don’t have the best reputation

Sister has one and is very happy with it, in fact she’s replacing an oil Rayburn in their other house with an electric Aga.

I was talking about the everhot with its constant high electric use.

The Everhot uses around 85 units a week on typical settings.

You should be able to get a 13A conversion for the Aga.

DON’T go there, the 13amp is the worst cooker AGA ever made, let alone the conversions!

Little know fact- the British Icon that is the AGA is actually Swedish in origin!

Cheers,
Jamie

The new controllable Agas don’t have the best reputation

They had an issue with the wiring loom getting hot on the Total Control models but that’s been sorted. Some people experience slight rusting in the ovens, the fan needs to be run for a while after cooking to get rid of any steam.

Cheers,
Jamie

Our sheep farmer has one along with solar panels to run it.

On the eco-friendly note, the Everhot was designed by a chap who wanted a heat-store range cooker to run of the power from his watermill!

Cheers,
Jamie

Turn-off-and-on-able is a relative term.

Being able to knock it down in the summer or boost it up an hour before cooking a big meal is what I mean. The Everhot 110i has three independently controllable ovens and an induction plate as well as being able to sit there as a big lump of warm iron. Various sources have said it’s 25-50% less to run than the Aga equivalent (back to designed for the job rather than converted from something else).

As it runs off a couple of 13A plugs I’m thinking about eco power sources. The original was designed to run off the residual power in a water powered mill!

<incoming text> Mrs. Sturmeyarcher has ordered an Everhot 110i in black…guess that’s that then 🙂

Anyone want to make an offer on an old Aga? It’s in Sheffield.

The Everhot uses around 85 units a week on typical settings.

…4420 units a year = £663 at current prices

That’s more than the fuel bill for our solid fuel range, but that does our central heating as well, and releases a bit more than ‘gentle warmth’ into the kitchen.

Being able to knock it down in the summer

Seriously, just get a separate “normal” cooker. You can even turn them off completely. I wouldn’t dream of firing up our range in summer. It takes hours to get warm, takes hours to cool down – as will any 300kg lump of cast iron.

That’s more than the fuel bill for our solid fuel range

But less faff getting the fuel into it 😉

Cheers,
Jamie

On the eco-friendly note, the Everhot was designed by a chap who wanted a heat-store range cooker to run of the power from his watermill!
Cheers,
Jamie

Cool, that was actually one of my plans for when I can find and afford a house with a waterwheel. They are quite hard to come by in decent locations.

DON’T go there, the 13amp is the worst cooker AGA ever made, let alone the conversions!

He’s quite happy with it, in fact he’s quite proud of how well it is working for them and cooking on it is certainly not a problem. Had many a nice meal getting in from lambing in freezing weather.

…4420 units a year = £663 at current prices

That’s about half what our gas Aga cost to run – happy days.

Solid fuel rocks but I’m not changing our chaotic lifestyle to save a few quid.

Waterwheel…there’s an underground stream running down our 1:5 hill, or I was thinking ground-source might work nicely.

But less faff getting the fuel into it

Don’t go there. They’re a massive, massive faff.

That’s about half what our gas Aga cost to run – happy days

You must be on LPG?

Not LPG, just an inefficient beast that had to stay on full blast all year. The gas could be turned up and down a smidge but more often than not the thermocouple would blow and we would be without a cooker for a few days until the one firm who’d touch it could get over.

It does sound as if your old Aga was goosed.

Don’t let anyone take it away for you – they will head straight for the nearest scrappie and weigh it in. Take it along yourself for cash; I bet you’ll get £50 for it. They are easy to dismantle as long as you’ve got a Henry for all the vermiculite and some big bin bags.

Don’t let anyone take it away for you – they will head straight for the nearest scrappie and weigh it in.

AGA will give you £750 off a new one at the moment. They bung them into a gert big furnace in Telford; inside every new AGA there’s a little bit of AGA history!

Cheers,
Jamie

What about one of those Esse ones, made in Barnoldswick? Never had (or even seen) one, but the factory’s near where I used to live. That’s not being very helpful, is it?

Not LPG, just an inefficient beast that had to stay on full blast all year

So you’re on mains gas, and you don’t have a normal gas oven?

You, my friend, are officially barking.

What about one of those Esse ones, made in Barnoldswick?

Isn’t that where Hope are based? If so, a Shimano one will be cheaper and stop your bike better…

wikipedia
A small, two-oven AGA running on gas will use approximately 425 kWh per week (22,100 kWh per year; perhaps half that if switched off during the summer months)….

… 220 kWh for the electric models…

Holy f*cking sh… Near on 2 grand on electric. That makes this Everhot thing sound cheap!

Our AGA was second-hand off Ebay and in fantastic condition. We got it dismantled, moved and reassembled by a bloke who sorted a couple of tired seals at the same time. It was interesting to watch him assembling the AGA, I got a sequence of photos.

In our house the AGA stays on all the way into July when we are sweltering with the sun coming in the bifold doors. That’s when Mrs Gti goes from being “freezing” to merely “chilly” and takes off her woolly vest. In winter it certainly makes the kitchen a nice warm place to be and I’m sure it contributes something to the general warmth of the house, which is pretty well insulated, especially as the flue goes right up through the centre. If we leave the kitchen door open, the hall roomstat won’t bring the CH in.

wikipedia
A small, two-oven AGA running on gas will use approximately 425 kWh per week (22,100 kWh per year; perhaps half that if switched off during the summer months)….
… 220 kWh for the electric models…

Holy f*cking sh… Near on 2 grand on electric. That makes this Everhot thing sound cheap! The Total control is quoted as using 30kWh per 24 hours on all the time, 8kWh in slumber mode and as low as 35Kw a week on a typical weekly menu i.e. having the ovens on and off when needed.

Cheers,
Jamie

The Total control is quoted as using 30kWh per 24 hours on all the time, 8kWh in slumber mode and as low as 35Kw a week on a typical weekly menu i.e. having the ovens on and off when needed.

Is “total control” the thing where they try and turn the AGA into a normal oven that you switch on for cooking and then switch off again when done?

Having a 300kg oven that you switch on and off when needed is an exercise in futility – the thermal mass is completely counterproductive to quick control – it just turns this thing into a phenomenally inefficient regular oven.

Aga, schmaga.