On 17 Jan 2006 05:05:24 -0800, wrote:

wrote:
Any conventional cooker is likely to be much much cheaper to run than a
Rayburn - mainly because you can switch it off when not in use.
S'obvious really! Also a normal cooker is much more practical and
versatile than Rayburn/Aga etc. If you really like the "Aga" style of
cooking then you can mimic it easily on a normal cooker - but without
having to buy special pans etc. Not sure why you'd bother however.
The good news is: you can probably sell it 2nd hand and get most/all of
the price of a proper cooker.

Interesting thread this. To get back to the start and answer the OPs
query: thought I would add to my first thoughts - all the above I
would still say, but I would add - "on the other hand by all means keep
the Rayburn if you really really want to as a few people seem get
really hooked on them and you too might appreciate whatever it is they
get out of them inspite of the high running costs (but I can't see it
myself!)".

cheers
Jacob

I actually did some tests on the aga with an oven thermometer.
Wih all hobs closed it was about 210C.

After an hours cooking on both hobs, it was 195C.

7% drop.

Its an oil fired aga with thermosat controlled burner.

What this shows is that

- yes, flat out it cannot maintain oven temp with both lids up but
- since it takes 4 hours to heat up, even with no burner on, it probably
takes 4 hrs to cool down..and an hours hob cookng with a modulating burner
is not really going to affect cooking temps enough to be noticeable.

I THINK the oil flow rate on 'full' is about 3x what it is on 'low' which
implies that its probably only about 1.5KW into the ovens, max. As I would
assume that 'low' oil flow is less than what it does at 'idle'