Aga without wicks (hypothetical)

[mary]

Are they necessary? I just relit my range without the wicks by mistake and it was burning beautifully (on high ) for a short while before I realized my mistake What purpose do they serve actually and could an Aga work without them?

[PeterK]

There was a "feature" on Radio 4 early this afternoon about oil Aga's (listen again at

-after the caravan feature )I had to switch it off at the point when the purpose of the wick was being explained. The jist of the programme was that some Aga owners are having to have their oil Aga's serviced every few weeks due to the build up of ash on the burner. What I heard was slagging off Aga's but as it went on it transpired they were Aga's converted to oil by a third party using non Aga parts and that the spec of heating oil has been changed to reduce the sulphur content whilst at the same time doubling the measure of how much ash can be produced.

Peter K

[PeterK]

Its here

[The Natural Philosopher]

All the wicks do is allow you to light them. After that they are irrelevant.

Carboning up used to be a once a year and a bit of a scrape: now its a once every 6 months full blooded drill out of the oil tube.

[mary]

oh no! I should be crying but I can't help laughing. Lucky that I do all my own servicing.So far I din't think the Aga is any worse than before but if the fuel does deteriorate they seem to be saying that it may be best to retrofit a new burner (cost unknown)

[mary]

ah so.Well I wonder if they actually are unhelpful then.Do they accelerate carboning up? As I said I relit my Aga without wicks by mistake. I did notice it was different and perhaps it would have been much harder but for the burner still being quite hot. It must have been the vapours that caught. So in theory it could be dangerous. But if as a result the burner burned cleaner maybe it could be a good trick???

[cynic]

The only purpose of the wick is to allow the burner to be lit. Once fuly alight and the casting the wick sits in is hot, the burner becomes fully vapourising and the wicks are irrelevant. Someone is pulling your plonker about ash being a problem. The older burners have a small bore oil feed tube which runs under the burner and also gets hot. The oil within it boils and a carbon deposit forms in the tube outlet which chokes things up and the burner flame reduces or goes out. Later models had a very much larger tube which was tolerant of a greater carbon build up i.e. loger between services Agas are simpe to service but - and I stress this - you do need to know what you are doing. Never play about with any of the preset adjustments within the oil flow control unit, always ensure the burner is level all ways,

[mary]

Would it help to insulate the feed tube ,say with fibreglass wrapped in aluminium foil.Would that prevent the fuel boiling?

Well I have serviced my Aga for the last 20years on account of it being so hard to het anyone else to do it. Is it dangerous then if the thermostat has gone bust?I adjust the flame manually,I thought there was a *fire valve* that kicked in automatically if the Aga got out of control (overheated ) Am I right?