What about the new electric Aga range cooker, it’s supposed to be cheap to run?

To get running costs you need to know how much energy you are using, and how much a unit of energy costs.

Whatever source of energy you use, it is measured in kWs. Unfortunately, only gas and electricity is sold in kW’s so you have to convert. It’s not difficult, as 1 litre of oil is 10.3 kW, so at 44p/litre that’s 4.3p/kW. Electricity is about 14p/kW. So oil, expensive as it is, is still less than third the price of electricity. If you want to warm your room or cook your dinner, it will take an amount of energy, a number of kW’s. The same number of kW’s whether you use oil, gas or electricity. So an electric cooker will cost more than three times as much to run as an oil cooker, as electricity is 14p/kW.

Pellets are about £200 a tonne, and with 5,000kW per tonne that just 4p/kW!

Incidentally coal or LPG is about 9p/kW, wood if dried for 2 years works out about 2-3p/kW. Logs and wood pellets are the only really carbon neutral fuel.

Aga range cookers have brought out the ‘Total Control’ electric cooker, they’ve caught up with the rest of us. This saves a considerable sum over the original electric Aga range cooker, but nowhere near as much as our completely controlled pellet or oil models save.

Remember, electricity is a means of transmitting energy, it is not a source of energy. It is a convenient way of transmitting the energy in coal, from the mines to your house, but it is dirty & expensive because it is very inefficient.

3-oven Thornhill range cooker: £1-200 per annum

2-oven Aga range cooker: £6-700 per annum

3-oven total control Aga range cooker: £4-500 per annum.

For the cleanest and meanest buy a Thornhill Range, they are better by design.