On 15 Jan 2006 01:50:27 -0800, wrote:


Andy Hall wrote:
On 14 Jan 2006 08:03:11 -0800, wrote:


Andy Hall wrote:

Contrast this with our former arrangement of a fan oven and gas hob,
it could work out that when cooking a complex meal that 10-12kW or
more is released from this lot. Then the windows have to be opened
wide to maintain a sensible temperature. That's what I call a waste.

My last gas bill shows 336KWh for the quarter which is about 3.3KW per
day.
Your estimate equals 16.8 KW per day. Thats what I call waste.

No, because the heat is virtually all used within the house and may be
subtracted from the consumption of the other heating systems.

So, if my gas cooker was 1/5th as efficient this would be a good thing
as "the heat is virtually all used within the house and may be
subtracted from the consumption of the other heating systems"? Righto
I'll make a point of leaving it on unecessarily, and remove all the
insulation from around the oven!
cheers
Jacob


I think that you must have missed my point.

The Aga produces heat at a virtually constant rate of around 700W.

It is released in part in the kitchen and in part from the lower parts
of the flue where it usefully warms the house.

The cooking techniques are different from conventional cookers in that
there are a wide range of temperatures available across the four ovens
and a large proportion of cooking operations that would be done on the
top on a conventional cooker are done in the ovens. Thus, the top
plates, proportionately, are not used as much as the ovens.

A conventional set up of a cooker or a cooker and hob is quite
different. Firstly, insulation is comparatively poor for the oven and
large amounts of heat (2-3kW) are released into the room when it is
running. Secondly, the designs are poor. The one-size-fits-all fan
oven is one of the worst services to proper cooking ever invented. It
limits the range of temperatures available and dries the food badly.
There needs to be much more use of the hob. At around 2-3kW per
burner, it is very easy to be producing 10-12kW released into a small
space in the kitchen while cooking.

That is the essential point. There is no value in having this amount
of heat released into a small space because it will overheat it,
necessitating opening of the windows. At that point, the heat is
wasted. This is a very different proposition to having 700W released
on a continuous basis and forming part of the heating of the house. If
you think about the amount of heat required to heat a room in a
typical house (whatever that is), it is generally much closer to 700W
than 10kW.


--

..andy