Talk:AGA cooker

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Design[edit]

There is no information about the design of these cookers. How do these cookers differ from other cookers? Leondegrance (talk) 01:48, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Advertising[edit]

A British acquaintance tells me he thinks some of the copy on this page appears to be from AGA advertising. It might be worth a review. Dan ad nauseam 21:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Can you ask your friend which parts he thinks may be plagiarized and I'll have a check through all the Aga literature I have. Rbirkby 22:08, 11 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does sound like advertising[edit]

This article appears to be an effort to praise rather than merely describe the Aga.

Consider the section on energy use. I take it that these stoves are kept on all the time, thus use a lot of energy. This article's description: "the two oven Aga [consumes] ... 425 kWh of natural gas [per week] ... To put this into perspective, the average domestic natural gas consumption in the UK is 386.75 kWh per week." That compares the energy use of one appliance to the energy use of a whole household. Not exactly fair. Chassimmons (talk) 03:05, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Energy section[edit]

I created the section on energy use as an informative and well referenced section with a NPOV. I don't see how a section which shows that a typical Aga uses more energy than an average household can in anyway be viewed as praise!

I would very much appreciate any additional (referenced) information comparing the energy usage of a domestic 4-hob/oven gas cooker.

Rbirkby (talk) 08:27, 17 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've tinkered with this too. I think the fact that it consumes energy 24/7/365 is notable, but needs some sort of comparison to put it in context. Yes, it also heats the house via an integrated central heating system(?), provides hot water and walks the dog, but presumably it's not great at either of these tasks due to the lack of heat regulation? It also has an annoying habit of making a whole house overly hot during the summer months due to heat leakage, which is why many users seem to turn it off during the summer and rely on a standard oven elsewhere in the kitchen.
It would be good to source some decent comparisons rather than simply state that it consumes more energy that a standard house - it's a bit of an unfair comparison, and doesn't compare like for like. Ideas? Little grape (talk) 09:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What about the article by George Monbiot in the Guardian of 2009-01-13: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/13/heathrow-campaigners-environmentalism-brendan-oneill (with discussion) ? Is that of any use? PJTraill (talk) 09:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would suggest that the energy section should be removed until it can completely rewritten in a more realistic manner. It fails the obvious "reality test". The comparison test is not a like for like! You don't heat your house by using your electric oven. George Monobiot in his article deliberately used worse case figures for the Aga. This section needs to quote a reasonable figure or not quote one at all. One Uk figure suggests that a 4 person household in the UK averages 1500KwH per month (domestic hot water/ cooking) which compares with Aga's figure of 800KwH a month. if you included underfloor electric heating in the figure the Aga would look very reasonable.
This article should use a better more real world model or not quote figures at all. Rbaal (talk) 19:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Where did you get those figures from? Real household consumption is nothing like that! Cite please? Also I've had a look at the AGA link you have placed in the article, but I think it's misleading at best. For example, consider this:
Did you know? An AGA never needs an extractor hood, as cooking smells are gently vented straight outside from the oven with very little loss of heat or energy use. A conventional extractor hood, on the other hand, not only uses as much as 5kW of electricity per week, it can extract up to 160 litres of air from the kitchen per minute! That’s an awful lot of hot air disappearing outside – air that’s been heated by your central heating when the weather is cooler and potentially a waste of energy.
Of course they're making the basic error of comparing their oven with a hob! An AGA and a conventional oven of any type *don't* need an extractor hood, but of course BOTH produce 'cooking smells' if you're cooking on the AGA hotplate or on a gas/electric hob.
They also make a big play of saying that their AGA loses 1.5kw of heat into a room, and thus (paraphrased)'you don't need a radiator in the kitchen, thus saving a fortune'. This of course ignores the fact that central heating systems only run during the winter, and the AGA blasts its 1.5kw into the whole house all year long. Oddly enough, they appear to have also forgotten to add this into their calculation.
Then, amazingly, they claim that because you can make toast on an AGA (well yes, as long as you stand there and take it off at exactly the right moment) and can apparently dry cloths and things on it, that you will save around £5000 (yes, FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS!!!) by not having to buy a pop-up toaster or two during your lifetime in the kitchen.
I could go on, but you get the point...
I'm therefore removing the link, as it's both incorrect and misleading - indeed the entire six pages smack of panic and desperation! Little grape (talk) 20:35, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You are supposed to discuss things not just undo because the change upsets your personnal sensibilities! I agree there are real problems with the AGA document but there are also real problems with the whole energy section. I included it to give some sort of balance ( not very good balance but better than nothing) Wiki is supposed to be NPOV thsiis current article is no such thing and reads like a Green rant against the AGA.

Monbiot seems was given a right roasting for that article as being completly unrealistic.

I would like a better energy section here so lets work one out rather than deleting stuff just caus you dont like it. The section as you left it gives a completly false impression and is completly one sided. Come up with a real model and lets put it in intil you do the AGAndocuemt should stay. --Rbaal (talk) 21:05, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise if I gave the impression that I am not willing to discuss the problems with the article. I think we probably share the view that the 'energy comparison' section is poorly written and sourced. However, I think the solution is linked to finding accurate data - my problem with the AGA document is that it's very misleading and should not be included for that reason. I provided a small list of some of the errors which exclude it from inclusion; could you explain why you think such a demonstrably error-strewn reference should be cited?
Your complaint about a supposed 'Green rant' indicates that you do not have a neutral view, and should bear this in mind when editing this article. Furthermore, you claim Monbiot was 'given a roasting', but haven't provided a) any evidence for this and b) you haven't been able to find anything that refutes his data.
With regard to a 'real model' - just what are you asking for? The facts are there; the energy consumption of an AGA compared to conventional ovens is worse than dismal. If you dispute this, then put your case; don't try and obfuscate known data by introducing an error-strewn PR puff-piece that directly conflicts with other information on AGA's own site! Little grape (talk) 07:37, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

David JC MacKay in his book "Sustainable Energy — without the hot air" rates one persons energy use for hot water and heating at approx 37KwH per day or 1295 a month. The figure I quoted 1500KwH per month per person come from official british docuement which I cannot find at the moment. Several other places use figures in this ball park --Rbaal (talk) 21:13, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But that's meaningless and irrelevant; the figures you should be looking at are the comparitive consumptions between an AGA (stated on their site to be 1700kWh per month for the gas two-oven WITHOUT hot water) and the official figures cited in the article at 48.3kWh per month for a standard gas oven and hob. These are actual, undisputed, consumption figures from reliable sources. If you dispute them, please find your own cites and reliable references rather than using completely irrelevant data and data that you think you've read somewhere but can't remember where. Little grape (talk) 07:37, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can we stop with the capitals ' FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS!!!" it does not do your argument any good. 5000 over 30 years is only 167 a year, I agree they are exagerating for effect but they are comparing it to more than toasters and it might be acheivable in practise for a small number of users. --Rbaal (talk) 21:19, 8 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But do you not see the difference between marketing spin by AGA, and reliable, referenced data? For example, you have plucked a figure of 30 years out of somewhere - can you see how this completely skews any reasonable comparison? Not least because an automatic toaster is a far more accurate and time-saving method of making toast. And who spends even £167 per year on kitchen appliances whose function is then replaced by an AGA? Could you perhaps list this annual expenditure for clarity? Little grape (talk) 07:37, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"I think we probably share the view that the 'energy comparison' section is poorly written and sourced." - we can agree on that, but i would make the point that we should make the best of what we have until better information/models become available.

"my problem with the AGA document is that it's very misleading and should not be included for that reason" - my answer is that the document does not really contain errors but contains some spin as you would expect from the manufacture however the spin is obvious and most people would be able to extract useful information from it despite its flaws. I would argue that reference 3 is also misleading as the data models presented there are to simplistic and will mislead people so using you own argument if you exclude reference 5 then you should also exclude reference 3. Energy models are inherently complex beasts and very simple representations such as 3 contribute nothing but confusion to the debate.

"Your complaint about a supposed 'Green rant' indicates that you do not have a neutral view" - you are reading to much into that comment. Its a response to the fact that the media that I read seems to be full of half baked green ideas which don't add up either from a technical or a mathematical point of view. As a trained engineer I am only interested in arguments that make sense from a technical view not fantasy land arguments that seem to require 1+1 to = something other than 2!

If you read the comment is fee website where Monobiot writes you will see something like 5 to 7 pages of comment on his article almost all critical about his article. The most common one was that he was not comparing like with like. Monobiot makes a lot of interesting points ( I have just read his book HEAT) but when it comes to technical details he is out of his depth and frequently gets things wrong. Read the site for more detail.

"But do you not see the difference between marketing spin by AGA, and reliable, referenced data?" - yes of course - so provide some - I dont think this article cirrently contain any. It contains information but i dont think is very good information.

"For example, you have plucked a figure of 30 years out of somewhere" its either in that article or another one on the AGA or Rayburn web sites. When considering some of the costs you have to remember that AGA last a very long time so costs and gains have to be considered over a longer time scale than you would for a cheap chinese electric oven which would have to be replaced 3-4 times over the same period.

"conventional ovens is worse than dismal" - I don't agree that that has been proven, the indications are that it is not very good in some circumstances but i think that dismal is to hard a term and yet to be proven. You cant consider thenal devices such as a AGA without considering how they are used. For instance consider 2 AGA , a 2 oven model in a single person household and a 4 Oven model in a nursing home. The first would be a disaster preparing maby only one hot meal a day, while the other would be on the go 24x7x365. Both are AGA, the first setup would be crazy, the second is a market that actually buys large numbers of AGA and they are commercial institutions for the most part, they are run by hard nosed managers and yet they buy tons of AGA why is that if they are as bad as you say? What do you know that all these hard nosed money pinchers don't? I suspect that answering the question for the AGA is very much more than straight KwH

BYW I dont have an AGA or expect to ever own one - I am interested in engineering soultions to global warming ( real solutions not 10:10 stuff) but i dont understand why this whole "lets bash teh AGA" thing that seems to be going on at the moment is coming from?

"Could you perhaps list this annual expenditure for clarity?" you should address that question to the authors of the article I dont know? --Rbaal (talk) 08:24, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Aga Renovation[edit]

Aga Twyford are the ONLY worldwide renovators of Aga Cookers authorised and in a partnership with the main Aga company. Why is it therefore that they cannot insert a link on the Aga Wikipedi page to their website in order to compliment the main Aga site. It seems ridiculous. The Wikipedia editor keeps trying to disallow the link. Why ? It is not for commerical reasons but merely to show that older models of the Aga are still available and are being preserved as part of the Aga history.Iannorman (talk) 19:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a discussion about this at WP:EAR#Aga Twyford. –– Jezhotwells (talk) 19:20, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Technology discussion[edit]

As someone who has never heard of AGA cookers until today, I'd love to see a section in the article discussing the how the cooker works. A briefing on the technology and perhaps comparison to other types of cookers? Thanks. Jdimpson (talk) 13:22, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

May be the picture HERE helps you. -- Tasma3197 (talk) 16:36, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think the point of the OP is the article does a very poor job of actually explaining what an AGA cooker is and how it works which considering this is an article on the AGA cooker is a very poor sign. Nil Einne (talk) 01:21, 8 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree, the basic AGA cooker is a device which uses energy (natural gas, propane, kerosine/diesel oil or electricity) 24/7/365 to provide instant cooking functions: hob/burner and oven. How it does this is unclear. And why it needs to be consuming fuel (on) 24/7/365 is also unclear. The AGA isn't just a conventional cooker/range, but this needs to be explained. I'm not suggesting that the article become a technical handbook, but it needs to explain in layman's terms how it functions. It would improve the article to expand the how/why of an AGA.--TGC55 (talk) 13:01, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Other picture[edit]

Took another pic from an AGA. Sadly you can't see the top plates much better than on that, what we have. If you like to exchange, feel free to do. -- Tasma3197 (talk) 10:11, 9 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Distributors[edit]

I consider that the last two sections of the article " Exclusive Distributors" referring only to Gasum of Finland, and "Distributors" referring only to Spillers of Chard, Somerset to be advertising / promotion. They have no place in an encyclopaedia, and do not add anything useful to the page. If there is any merit in including such information - which I doubt - then it should be impartial and all distributors who can supply a new AGA should be listed. However such a list of all AGA distributors, either UK based or worldwide would quickly swamp the page and be self defeating. As such I am prepared to delete them, but will wait a while and see if anyone can defend their inclusion in this article. Helwith boy (talk) 19:26, 23 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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WP:NOR in 3rd para of History section[edit]

The third paragraph of the "History" section includes some unsourced assertions that I believe are original research: "Aga cookers can also make a contribution to space heating, although it is not true that they can heat an entire house, despite persistent claims to the contrary, presumably arising because the cookers look similar to the many types of central-heating range such as the 'Stanley' or the 'Rayburn' Range, also made by the AGA Rangemaster Group." Unless someone can come up with some independent research or citation to support this assertion (which would need to disprove my own original research of an entire childhood spent living in a house heated solely by an AGA!) I would propose to delete it. CharlesSpencer (talk) 12:09, 5 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

No comments after a fortnight, so I shall go ahead and delete. CharlesSpencer (talk) 07:00, 20 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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