AGA Stoves
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AGA Stove
The stoves look much the same today
AGA Stoves are large, enamelled cast iron stoves with ovens and burners that run at different, pre-set temperatures. Traditionally, the stoves were always on, though now more energy efficient models go into "sleep" mode. Traditionally, there were no switches or dials on the stove.
AGA Stoves cost between £6,000 and £12,000 ($8,800 to $17,500 US), as of 2010. They are synonymous with country living for the type of well-off people in England who live in "listed homes." For them, the word AGA is shorthand for a lifestyle, and a class. There are websites where AGA owners and fans can share stories about their AGA Stoves.
Most of the AGA Stove models come with two hot plates on top of them. One of the plates is for simmering, the other for boiling. Each plate can hold up to three saucepans at a time on it. The plates are covered with hinged, insulated lids that retain the constant heat in when you swing them down onto the hot plates not in use. When the covers are closed, they get mildly warm, and can be used for drying clothes on top of.
A two oven AGA model has a roasting / baking oven and a simmer oven. The three oven model adds another baking oven. A premium four oven model has an additional plate on top, for warming, as well as having a warming oven that the other models don't.
AGA Stoves must be installed as they require a flue or a chimney. No extractor fan is needed, as cooking smells from the ovens go straight out that flue.
As of 2010, you can purchase AGA Stoves that run on electricity, diesel, natural or propane gas; you can also get dual-fuel versions. Models powered by coal, the original fuel for the stoves, are no longer made, but still running in some homes.
AGA fans argue that an AGA Stove replaces a lot of other household items: an Aga, they say, can dry clothes, toast bread, heat the room it is in, replace slow cookers, and replace the need for an electric kettle to boil water. AGA owners use the stoves for a zillion other purposes as well, from drying out rugs and wet dogs, to keeping prematurely born animals warm.
An AGA can't actually heat an entire house, as some believe -- that is confusion with the 'Rayburn' and 'Stanley' makes of stoves. It will, though, warm the kitchen, and some AGA Stove models do have a boiler inside so they also supply the hot water for your house.
Traditionally, the stoves ran all the time, non-stop. Electrical models which debuted in 2003 are programmable to go to "sleep" in between uses, at night, and when you are on holiday, so that the burners don't need to be on 24 hours a day. The interfaces for this programmable element were the first dials of any sort to appear on an Aga. Called the "AGA Intelligent Management System (AIMS)", the consoles can be retrofitted to older electric Agas.
Electrical ones can be very expensive to run, given that electricity rates, especially where electricity is government supplied, are outpacing other fuel costs.
Weekly power consumption, 13 amp electric AGA [1]
- 2 oven model, 220 kilowatts
- 3 oven model, 240 kilowatts
- 4 oven model, 270 kilowatts
The AGA company points out that electricity consumption can be reduced through use of the AIMS module, and that some AGA electrical models (such as the 30 amp AGA ) can store electrical power during cheap-rate hours for use later.
Oil models can use 40 litres of oil a week. In the early 2000s, an EU directive for lower sulphur in oil fuel caused oil-fuelled Agas to cake up with soot because the process for lowering the sulphur increased the "char value" of the oil. Additives can be put in the oil to compensate.
AGA released in 2010 a model which will run off bio-fuels (and oil or gas until bio-fuels are readily available.) They are working on a model that can run off cow dung.
Environmentalist George Monbiot claimed in January 2009 that Agas are environmentally unfriendly, issuing a challenge to all the slow food foodies who also thought themselves environmental, and loved their Agas. He wrote that a four-oven AGA model uses about 25 times more oil or electricity than a standard oven. [2] The most efficient Aga, as of 2009, products 3.5 tons of CO2 a year. [3]
AGA fans argue that because an AGA Stove replaces so many other appliances (toasters, kettles, clothes dryers, radiators in kitchens, etc), and lasts forever, that the energy usage figures don't actually reflect the stove's "footprint." They also point out that electric ones could be fuelled by solar or wind power.
A new model, released in 2011, has the ability to heat up far more quickly than previous models. It can be ready for frying in 8 minutes, and baking in 35 minutes. It has a hidden touch screen panel that allows various compartments of the stove to be turned on and off separately, giving the owner more flexibility. Previous more traditional models can require up to 6 hours of warming time before they are ready for use.
The cast iron castings for the AGA Stoves are made in Coalbrookdale in Telford, Shropshire. The pieces are coated with vitreous enamel at a factory in Ketley, 6 miles (9 1/2 km) away.
History Notes for AGA Stoves
Dalén was blind, having lost his sight in a acetylene tank explosion ten years earlier in 1912. Despite this, he remained Managing Director of the AGA Gas company.
Dalén felt that stoves of the time were poorly designed, and wanted to invent a stove that made cooking simpler, a project that he worked at off and on in his spare time.
The first model that he released commercially had a heat source, two large hotplates and two ovens, and was coal powered.
AGA Stoves were introduced into the UK in 1929.
Production in Sweden was discontinued by the AGA company in 1957.
In the UK, the licenced manufacture is Glynwed International, which makes about 2,000 a year (2010 figures.)
Literature & Lore
"Let us correct the Monbiot prejudices. About 70 per cent of a new AGA is made of wholly recycled materials - mostly scrap-iron, from retired drainpipes and manhole covers to the prose of Guardian columnists. What's more, a properly maintained AGA will last for decades: on average, the lifetime of five conventional cookers, in all their corroding, toxic landfill.
If you take full advantage of an AGA - much nonsense arises from folk who have inherited one and simply cannot fathom cooking without knobs and dials - it can send quite a few other electric devices into deserved retirement.
The electric toaster can go; the simmering oven warms up a prepared meal as toothsomely and almost as speedily, as any microwave; properly folded washing on the simmering-plate cover needs no ironing and an overhead laundry pulley is much kinder to your delicates than a static-fizzing tumble dryer...
An AGA is a heat-storage cooker and the secret is to use the ovens as much as possible, using the hotplates only for rapid boiling of, say, green vegetables. If the covers are left up all the time and the cooker ignorantly used, untold heat is wasted and bills will indeed be astronomical." -- MacLeod, John. A Real AGA Saga, Range of Adventures. An AGA cooker is almost like a member of the family. London: Daily Mail. 16 January 2009.
Language Notes
Acknowledgements
[2] George Monbiot. This is indeed a class war, and the campaign against the AGA starts here. Manchester: The Guardian. 13 January 2009.
[3] Sarah Lonsdale. Green property: are Agas off the boil? : They've been facing a bit of criticism, but are Agas really that environmentally unfriendly? London: Daily Telegraph. 24 November 2009.
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AGA Cooker. Retrieved February 2010 from http://www.aga.com/web/web2000/com/wppcom.nsf/Pages/History_AGAcooker?opendocument
AGA History. Retrieved February 2010 from http://www.aga-ranges.com/aga/history.asp
AGA cooks up a profit after a shaky recession. Management Today Magazine. 27 August 2010.
Aganomics: The guide to AGA home economics. AGA Rangemaster Group plc. July 2009, Version 2.0.
Laven, Rosie. AGA suffers as property slump cools spending. London: The Times. 20 October 2008.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/consumer_goods/article4976618.ece
Lonsdale, Sarah. Green property: are Agas off the boil? : They’ve been facing a bit of criticism, but are Agas really that environmentally unfriendly? London: Daily Telegraph. 24 November 2009.
McGrath, William: A home with an AGA cooker can use less energy than one without. Manchester: Guardian. 16 January 2009, page 37.
Miller, Wendy. Cold comfort in AGA sAGA : The 'wrong kind of oil’ is clogging up our Agas, says Wendy Miller . London: Daily Telegraph. 18 January 2010.
Smith, Julia Llewellyn. My AGA love affair is cooling. London: Daily Telegraph. 20 March 2010.
Wallop, Harry. New generation Aga: turns on in 8 minutes, by iPhone. London: Daily Telegraph. 17 May 2011.
Woods, Judith. Is this the end of Aga's saga? : As AGA reports declining sales and job cuts, we must save this symbol of our heritage. London: Daily Telegraph. 15 January 2009.
