My AGA racks up big bills but I would never give up the ultimate kitchen status symbol, says TOBY WALNE

Why spend a few hundred euros on a standard oven when you can invest in a sturdy half-ton cast iron stove for over €12,000 – with an AGA badge on it.

To the uninitiated, this heat storage stove may seem like a strange choice.

Traditionally, its biggest attraction is that, unlike other stoves, it always stays on. So when there’s no Sunday roast cooking, it just stays there like a giant radiator heating the kitchen and warming the bones of the house.

As a fashion accessory, logic goes out the window with an AGA – along with thoughts of the energy bill skyrocketing upon arrival.

It’s not just the glorious iconic curves with usually three individually heated ovens – ideal for Mary Berry baking – but also the chrome-plated hob tops.

Even estate agents like Savills are weak – believing that the appeal of this range can be seen as an investment by adding more than the purchase cost to the value of a property – and seen as an aspirational trophy for the middle class’ in heart and soul’. of the house’.

However, it is no surprise that AGA has struggled during the cost of living pressure as fuel prices have risen. Turnover has fallen – with a reported drop in turnover from £10m to £144m in 2022.

That’s why it has recently switched to a new generation of fully electric cookers, where you can control the oven and hobs individually at the touch of a button, to keep running costs low.

This led to AGA getting into hot water with the Advertising Standards Authority earlier this week for boasting that it has the ‘lowest running costs’ compared to other electric heat storage cast iron ranges on the market.

AGA was told to withdraw the advert on its website for its ‘eR7’ and was criticized for the way it compared its own £12,695 cooker with competitors such as the £12,200 Everhot 110i, because it was selective with the data that were used to make comparisons.

The Aga eR7 left in sleep mode consumed 0.347 kWh per hour – just over £16 worth of electricity per week. This is when the cooker is in sleep mode on a low base setting, requiring the push of a button to bring it back up to full temperature.

In contrast, the Everhot 110i consumed 0.531 kWh per hour – so it could cost around £25 a week to keep it running.

But when both cookers were full, the eR7 hob used 0.6kWh (17p per hour), while the Everhot 110 used 0.22kWh (6p).

If AGA were to run the oven and hobs at full power for seven days, 252 kWh of electricity could be used. Using energy watchdog Ofgem’s standard unit rate of 28.62p per kWh, this works out to more than £70 per week – or £300 per month.

According to data collector NimbleFins, this is even more than the total average energy costs of a household: € 168 per month. Even the highest energy consumers in the home (the top 25 percent) use an average of only € 233 per month.

But now that I write as a proud AGA owner myself, I’m all too aware of the cache – and pitfalls – of owning one. It is far from a cost-effective stove. You pay top dollar for a luxury brand, the ultimate kitchen status symbol for rural and city dwellers alike.

Long gone are the days when AGA ovens were powered by wood, coal or oil and the entire range now consists of electric models, with classic three-oven AGAs typically costing from £12,000. Most stoves have separately controlled ovens and stoves.

My three-oven ‘Dual Control’ burns 142.8 kWh of electricity per week and is designed to be left on – although the hobs are controlled separately (these use 0.78 kWh per hour of electricity with both hobs on).

Leave the oven on 24 hours a day and we have added over £40 per week to our total energy bill.

Yet the AGA also warms the house by heating the kitchen like a giant radiator, and we can do without central heating if we’re willing to huddle around it.

It may bring us together as a family, but this handsome beast offers poor value for money.

That’s why the AGA is switched off for a third of the year and our standard 2.5kWh electric oven is used instead, which only uses around 70p per hour when switched on.

An AGA spokesperson said: ‘The need to reduce consumers’ energy costs prompted AGA over a decade ago to develop new all-electric models that tackle energy issues.

Nowadays, it makes little sense for most consumers to have a stove that is always on.

For example, the AGA eR7 allows each oven and hob to be controlled separately, meaning they are on when you need them and off when you don’t, for example at night, when you are at work or when you you’re on your way. holidays.

Hobs heat up in eight to ten minutes and ovens in 40 to 60 minutes. This way you never use energy unnecessarily.’

The Advertising Standards Authority says: ‘The Everhot was more efficient in energy consumption for the hottest oven function. Therefore, we felt that the data did not demonstrate that the AGA eR7 had the lowest running costs of all cast iron heat storage hobs.”

My AGA is built like a tank and isn’t going anywhere – so should last a lifetime and beyond. I use this to help justify the eye-watering weekly bill of £40 for keeping it, as I lean against the ‘heather’ (chic pink colour) brute with a glass of red wine gently warmed on the side of the stove.

If we assume a purchase price of € 12,000, this amounts to just over € 200 per year in 50 years.

Oh dear. I couldn’t even buy a standard stove for that kind of money.

And when I turn it off in the summer – a trick that ensures it doesn’t cost a penny to run for much of the year – I convince myself that the AGA is worth every penny.