Thermostat on gas AGA

Mar 25, 2026 Last reply: 3 months ago 2 Replies

My wife has set the temperature knob on our gas AGA to give known temperatures in the various ovens.



We noticed that yesterday a loaf of bread was slightly overcooked compared with the normal 20 mins in roasting oven plus 10 minutes with cold shelf (heat shield) above the loaf. The temperature gauge on the AGA was reading a bit higher than normal.



The weather was very windy. Could it be that wind blowing across the top of the flue pipe was creating more of an updraught than normal, making the gas flame burn hotter? If so, wouldn't the thermostat (set by the temperature knob) have corrected for that?



If we'd thought, we'd have measured the temperature in (for example) the roasting oven to see if it was hotter than normal.



Gas usage for the house was a bit higher than normal: about 105 kWhr rather than about 95 kWhr which it has been averaging recently, even though the outside temperature was warmer so the central heating wouldn't have been on for as long. (Yesterday the boiler was on for 2 hr



2 min, compared with 1 hr 58 min for previous day, so CH usage was very similar. Figures courtesy of Hive.)

As one does...

I run an in oven thermometer on my (oil) Aga.

The thermostat operates extremely well 200°C± bugger all....

...Until I put something in...

A large lump of cold meat drops it to 150°C

In short the Aga doesn't have access to the sort of peak power necessary to fully stabilise oven temperature under variable load.

It is possible that your bread was less in mass or warmer in temperature...

My experience is that itr does, The effect of wind has sometimes been to blow down the flue and trip the burner out, but that's mostly it

Its a good plan.

Its more likely that your thermostat is located somewhere that has greater heat loss when its windy

I don't know about gas but wind outside certainly does things to my oil burner. I am told my 'chinese hat' rain cap on the chimeny pot is especially good at generating draughts the wrong way. So much so that the fire valve can be tripped by the copper heat sensor which sits outside the burner but inside the Aga door.

TW

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