anyone got an electric aga?

Using electric heating rather than gas means about triple the CO2 emissions. Don't you have a conscience?

Reply to
Bruce
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Oh, give it a rest.

Reply to
Bob Eager

Anyone able to answer my original question?

Reply to
vbleau

I think many people are simply too disgusted with your selfish and arrogant attitude to be interested in offering advice.

Reply to
Bruce

Your attitude is worse.

Reply to
Bob Eager

I think it's more likely no-one has one.

If one had a conscience one would be using nuclear powered electricity rather than consuming a not particularly renewable resource like gas (or oil) that one has to buy in increasing amounts from elsewhere, putting our nation at a strategic and balance of payments disadvantage.

Reply to
Bob Mannix

Nah. I live within 50 miles of nuclear power station.

;-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I think you may have missed the point. A number of people have already answered your question.

Reply to
Huge

What a peculiar response. You know nothing about me.

Reply to
vbleau

I wonder why the power companies don't offer a "Nuke" tarrif like they do "Green" ones?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Indeed.

Its all part of this religious political correctness that says that owning anythng that MIGHT (only MIGHT) use more energy than the alternative, is disgusting and sinful.

However taking a broader view, I suspect in twenty years time MOST of our electricity will be generated by nuclear, so in fact you could be said to be future proofing your house ;-)

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

I wish they would. And implement a carbon tax. Even better if they offered 'nuke-free' tariffs. Then all the people who automatically think nuclear bad would use the (expensive) non-nuke tariff, leaving lots of nice cheap nuke generated leccy for me. It would be even more fun if the generators were taxed on the amount of radioactive 'stuff' released into the environment. I always like it when people are prevented from externalising their costs into the commons.

Sid

Reply to
unopened

A number of electric Agas were installed in a new "luxury" development near here a couple of years ago. I know one of the first owners and saw him yesterday so asked his views. He lived there for about 18 months. In that time quite a number of the pre-fitted Agas in the development were removed (including his). Mostly this was not to do with the fact they were electric or not particularly useful cookers but that they were fitted in large flats with modern levels of insulation and made the place unlivable for much of the year.

He was not impressed with his electric Aga. His main criticisms were that :-

It broke, twice. For a very simple crude device like an Aga this wasn't to be expected. The famed "man" which each Aga requires to look after it wasn't familiar with the electric version and each repair therefore took some time. The owner didn't know what component caused the failures.

It was staggeringly expensive to run. It cost more in energy than the rest of the house in total. When he got rid of it his total (heating, water heating, lighting and cooking) expenditure on energy halved.

It had a built in extractor fan you had to remember to turn on and off before and after cooking. If you forgot to turn it off you warmed the world even more than usual.

The temperature control was somewhat inconsistent and in line with all Agas it had very poor heat recovery which made cooking with it even more unpredictable. Agas trade time for energy. Whilst this was an admirable design concept when they were anthracite powered it is pretty daft for an electric device. Most of Europe, and Aga themselves, realised the design was obsolete in the late 1950's when they closed down oven production and sold the design and production rights to their UK licensee. Converting the inability to either know or control the temperature of an oven into a selling point is a masterpiece of advertising skill, not design, technology or functionality.

The heating element appears to be about 2,500W, on a par with the "Baby Belling" plug in two ring tabletop cooker favoured in student accommodation of a certain quality. In line with most Agas this means you are relying upon the heat stored in a few hundredweight of steel and cast iron (much of the weight of an Aga is in decorative bits and does not contribute to the heat store).

The stored heat concept works fine if you like stew and cook everything in the oven but fails miserably when the cooking rings are used (and is why traveling commercial caterers hate having to cook in houses with Agas, they know the damn thing will run out of heat before dinner finishes cooking). Once the temperature drops the element is incapable of heating things back up quickly. For the same reason the timer control was largely ineffective, the recovery time from minimal activity to ready for cooking was too long.

The problem (apart from being an obsolete concept and design) is that while the oven side works moderately well (all be it at huge cost in energy) the top heating plates are a disaster as their emission is far greater than the heat input . As soon as they are used much the overall cooker temperature falls quickly and takes a long time to recover.

He eventually sold his 1 year old electric Aga (advertised in the original builders blurb as "worth over £8,000") for £300.

As he had no need to incubate premature lambs (apparently a major selling point in Bayswater) he found the replacement separate oven and hob to be much cheaper to use, more flexible, much more capable. The food tasted exactly the same.

Reply to
Peter Parry

Because they are meaningless?

These tariffs do nothing to increase the generating capacity of nuclear (that is in fact reducing as nuclear stations close) nor of hydro (no new hydro stations planned) nor of wind power, because hefty government subsidies are the only thing that causes new turbines to be installed.

If the "green" tariffs were charged at the full economic cost of wind power you would have to pay three times as much as the normal tariff. Are there any green tariffs that charge that? Thought not.

So basically these tariffs mean nothing at all. They might give you a warm feeling that you are doing something to save the planet, but you aren't, not in any meaningful way.

Reply to
Bruce

If all costs are taken into account, nuclear generated electricity costs a lot more than the general mix from coal- and gas-fired power stations. I would be very happy for pro-nuclear idiots like you to pay the full cost of your daft ideas, probably somewhere between two and three times what you pay for electricity now.

Then the rest of us in the real world could see our bills reduce while nuclear supporters pay the full cost of their folly.

Reply to
Bruce

The non green economy option IS the nuclear option.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

A lot less.

Indeed. If the cost of global warming were taken into acciunt, thats exacltly what you SHOULD be paying for coal oil and gas, and if te subsidies were removed, for wind turbines as well.

NEW nuclear is cost effective at around 3-4p /unit.

Quite the reverse.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Thanks :o) Don't get me wrong, I have done my fair share of disgusting and sinful things over the years, but most of them were far more fun than having an aga!

Reply to
vbleau

An electric aga used for heating is the same efficiency and will cost the same or more than a fan heater or an oil filled radiator.

For cooking it will cost more or the same as an electric cooker.

Advice.. buy something cheaper with proper thermostats and timers for heating. Use a cooker for food. Sell the aga to another fool.

Reply to
dennis

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