Does an AGA Increase Your Central Heating Costs?

If you have always had visions of owning a lovely old, traditional home with a large country kitchen, an AGA would be ideal in situ. However, one of the most common reasons why people don’t get one fitted is because they fear the central heating costs will rise dramatically. To be fair, having an AGA turned on can be quite costly, but it doesn’t have to mean you can’t have one - you just need to think about how best to use it.

The First Expense

First of all you have to consider the initial cost of the AGA. People can buy brand new ones that cost £5000 and upwards, or there are some really cost-effective solutions out there, with the option of buying a reconditioned AGA for practically half the price of a new one. If this sounds like something you fancy doing, the next thing you need to think about is how much the AGA will cost to run.

Heating The Home

If you run the AGA in conjunction with your central heating being turned on, it is safe to say you can expect a costly bill each month. However, one of the main benefits of having an AGA is that it pumps out considerable amounts of heat which does actually heat the rest of the home. The AGA is designed to stay on permanently - its not like an oven that you turn on and off after each use. So, with this in mind, you might find that the AGA heats the home to a toasty warm temperature without you even needing to turn the central heating on, thus saving on costs.

Be Cost-Effective

Having said that, when the warmer months come around, people often get frustrated with their AGA. It’s just too warm! For many homeowners, the best solution is to turn the AGA off for a few months during the summer and this brings their heating bills down considerably. Of course, with the temperamental British weather, summer doesn’t always bring blue skies, so it may be that you need to turn the central heating on for a few hours each day just to stay warm. This is great because you won’t run up a huge bill by doing this for just a couple of hours. If you had the AGA on for 12 months of the year, that’s 8760 hours in total! Just imagine your central heating bills after that.

It is fair to say that owning an AGA does increase your central heating bills, but if you are cost-effective with your approach and make sure it gets turned off in the summer, you shouldn’t find that costs climb that much.