Buyer FAQs

Why should I invest in an AGA cooker?

Speak to any AGA owner and they'll wax lyrical about their cooker's qualities; its warmth, convenience and, of course, the superb cooking results. An AGA cooker has longevity built-in and is an investment that will last for generation. Its life-span is typically more than three times longer than a conventional cooker. 

In an AGA home (depending on the model you choose) you may never need a toaster, electric kettle, bread maker or tumble drier – your AGA cooker can do it all, and better. And with fewer appliances, your kitchen is less cluttered, as well as providing the opportunity to save on your home energy costs. Superior cooking performance and exceptional engineering is only part of the reason why an AGA cooker is such a good investment. The whole family will want to gather around the AGA cooker's gentle warmth and when everyday jobs such as the laundry and ironing need doing, its radiant heat will provide an invaluable helping hand.

Should you come to sell your home, the AGA is one of the few cookers that gets a name check in the Estate Agent’s details. It helps to sell your home to potential buyers.

To discover more about how an AGA cooker works and its many features, take a look at How an AGA cooker works or discover our 10 reasons to fall in love.

How much does it cost to run an AGA cooker?

It used to be a given that the AGA cooker was on all the time. Not so now with the introduction of new AGA models that have been built with 21st century lifestyles in mind – the AGA 60 , AGA 3 Series,  AGA Total Control and AGA Dual Control . It’s the controllable features on these four innovative models that allow the owner to have much more control over their AGA cooker’s energy consumption.

All of our new generation of AGA cookers are designed to conserve energy, they have much more control and allow individual operation of ovens and hotplates. Patents cover these unique cast iron hoplates and ovens. These new AGA cookers consume less energy compared to other heat-storage radiant heat range cookers. The hotplates are designed to heat up within 10 to 12 minutes, we therefore reccommend that there is no need to leave the hotplates on 24/7, they will heat up very quickly when required everyday.  If you do leave a hotplate on with the lid down, the boiling plate can cost 7-8 pence per hour, the simmering plate 3-4 pence per hour (based on 14p per kWh) 

The traditional AGA ( gas, oil and 13amp electric) has one relatively small heat source that works by saturating the cast iron in heat. As you cook the AGA uses the heat in the cast iron and the heat source supplies more heat to replace what has been used. It is an efficient way to cook but the traditional AGA is designed to be run continually and the cost of running depends on how much cooking you do (and therefore how much of the stored heat you use).

For the specific running costs of all the AGA range of cookers, see our Running Costs page. 

Do I need to learn a different style of cooking if I buy an AGA?

Cooking on an AGA is different to cooking on a conventional cooker but really isn't difficult. The AGA is a really instinctive cooker and we often hear about people cooking on an AGA who have never cooked at all before! We know the lack of knobs and dials on an AGA cooker can be a bit off putting but you can cook everything on an AGA that you can cook on the best conventional cooker - often quicker and it will taste as good, and often better than you are used to.

The great thing is that you have every temperature available all the time so you can cook lots of different things at the same time. As a general rule, the higher up in the oven something is, the hotter it is. So if something is cooking too quickly you just move it down. If it is cooking too slowly, you just move it up!

To make it even simpler, once you know the best place to cook an item; that is always the right place to cook it. As the ovens are at a preset temperature, you get really consistent results - just by putting the food in the same place each time. With a cooker with knobs and dials you need to adjust, there is always the risk of a variation in temperature each time you cook.

There is so much you can do with an AGA; whether you are a gourmet cook or just want to cook ready meals, or are anywhere in between. The simple rule of AGA cooking is that you cook by positioning in the ovens and by timing: it really is very hard not to get superior results, all because the ovens cook using radiant heat from the cast iron walls of the ovens.

Your local AGA shop has regular demonstrations and one to one cooking sessions to show you how to get the best from an AGA and help reassure you that it really is very easy to use an AGA cooker.