KITCHEN RANGES

I would like to know what to expect burning coal in a kitchen range. I have a Home Comfort whit enameled range. They are quite common and are rated to use anthracite coal. From all of your experience, what should I expect as far as burn times. I have a base heater in the front room and my house is very well insulated with thermal pane windows. Also I know some of you have other kitchen ranges and would like to know opinions on the best ones. Thanks, Mike

Mike, I have a Glenwood 208C range that I use with a Glenwood Modern Oak 116. They are at opposite ends of the house (sort of) and heat the whole place easily. I converted my cookstove to coal a couple of years ago and never looked back. They are a big chunk of cast iron and make good heat but do not have large fireboxes and will not burn for as long as the cylinder stoves. That said, I can get 8 hr shake and fill times out of it and even a bit longer if not firing it hard. While it's going anyways, I use it to cook and bake too.
I'm not familiar with your range but if it has coal grates and refractory lining around the box, you should be good to go. Post some pix of it and the firebox.

I have given some thought to buying an english made AGA/Rayburn kitchen range. The Rayburns are the same as the AGA but less expensive. They are very cool!

I'd looked into an AGA for my kitchen. They are supposedly extremely easy to run, go easily on 12 hour maintenance to shake/fill. They do not radiate that much heat into the kitchen as they are fully insulated. This is appealing to me as our kitchen is closed off from the rest of the house and most stoves would produce far too much heat for the space. The AGA is very heavy, about 1000 pounds, and is delivered in pieces and assembled on site. Fully insulated with vermiculite. I understand they burn about 15 pounds of anthracite per day and many people run them all year round. I found a seller in the UK who restores them and is willing to crate and ship them to the US. Fairly expensive. Supposed to be superb cooking appliances, with one very hot plate, one at simmering temperature, one hot oven, and one moderate/cool oven. A friend has a nat gas one and swears by it. The "solid fuel" models were never sold in the USA but there are some around. The Aga specialist I spoke with in Pennsylvania said they have several they service.

I'm now thinking of running a Glenwood or similar and just opening up the doors to let some of the heat out of the kitchen. Certainly the cheaper way to go.

Related, I found this set of pictures of a guy who converted an oil-converted aga back to solid fuel on flickr. Fun to view!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanais/set ... 644730829/

The model I wanted is called the Rayburn Heatranger, but to convince my wife, I'm sure I would have to buy one of the natural gas or oil-fired models. But, nonetheless, the Rayburn is a novel idea and something to think about.

The other kitchen range I was thinking about is the Utility Glenwood with gas burners and a coal-fired oven. These can physically fit in the space normally reserved for a modern 36" gas or electric range.

Those Rayburn AGA's are a pretty cool unit. They function as cooker and heater and can pump hot water to outboard radiators also. They are a big heavy units too. Kim and I had a dark red one in a house we rented in Wales. It was a tall narrow sort of row house on the Welsh coast. The AGA was down on the bottom floor and heated the whole place (three floors) pretty well.

Does anyone here know of a way to identify the stove model?

For example, I have found several people selling AGA's but these people don't know which model they have. This one lady bought a house with an AGA but knows next to nothing about the stove. She knows it runs on gas, has four ovens with a boiling plate and a side warming plate.

Do these AGA's have a model number stamped in the cast iron body or an identification plate?

What are you trying to find out specifically?

The very large majority of Agas in the USA are gas fired (either Natural or Propane) and either direct vent or regular chimney vent. They are sold in 2 oven models (about 39 inches wide) or four oven models (about 59 inches wide). More recently, three oven versions have been introduced. There are also electric versions which use a 2.5Kw element to do the same thing as the gas burner or small coal fire; it would be fiendishly expensive to run here in Connecticut.

While many Agas in the UK and europe heat the domestic hot water via a gravity circulating open system with a tank installed above the aga, this version has not been imported to this country. Rayburn cook stoves can do central heating as well, but only up to about 40K-50K btus from the coal/wood versions, and none of these (to my knowledge) were ever imported to the US. The only agas that do central heating are matching, separate boilers (in coal, oil, or gas) which bolt on along side of the regular aga. Like this:



There are privately imported agas of other versions in the US, the original (and most efficient) fuel is coal (anthracite or coke). I assume there are oil fired ones as well, but they burn a lot of oil (atmospheric burners) and require kerosene and very frequent cleanings of the internals.

So when shopping, you want to see if the aga has a chimney or if it just vents through the wall, how many ovens it has, and what kind of fuel it's using. Keep in mind that they cannot be moved in one piece, they are disassembled and reconstructed at the new site. Not a big deal, but a fairly complex and time consuming process.

You might want to get in touch with an Aga installer, who can help you with all of this. I spoke to Wayne Adams in Pennsylvania (againstallations.com) a year or two ago. He had lots of used stoves in stock and even had a very cool early 1930s coal fired version.

Finally, if you want to play with one, I was at the Holloway's appliance in Simsbury last week and their aga was running. It's one of the large 4 oven models, gas fired, and gives you a sense of how much heat they give off to the room and what the ovens are like, etc.

Good luck!
Josh

EarthWindandFire wrote:I have given some thought to buying an english made AGA/Rayburn kitchen range. The Rayburns are the same as the AGA but less expensive. They are very cool!

Can you find the Rayburn in the US ? If so please let me know! I have friends in England who use these are they rock if I can find one I'll buy it tomorrow !!!!

You can get the wood fired model through Heartland Appliance. Costs $9000 through Lehmans. Not sure what the difference is between the wood only and the one designed to burn wood or coal. I looked at the manuals from the UK and it looks like they have some flat bars fitted on top of the shaking grates and perhaps a different firebox baffle.

http://www.heartlandapp.com/en/Products ... kstove.htm

Dunno if you´ve already come across one of these:

The company is called ESSE, what you see here is a ESSE 990 Series. The company advertises them as wood burning ranges, but the info-video they posted on youtube states that anthracite can be used as well!
The advantage I see: the Esse solid fuel stove has 3 propper ovens, whereas the Rayburn solid fuel range has one functional oven and one warming oven. Plus the Esse circulates the gasses around the ovens and is supposedly more economical on fuel....
the disadvantage: you have to clean the flues around the ovens on a regular base and that appears to be a fiddly job
but that´s just what I gathered from their HP, can offer no real life experience on either brand
here´s the link to their HP: http://www.esse.com/range-cookers/990/

I grew up with AGAs and I believe I have the oldest one in existence that I will get round to restoring one day, a Dahlen original design, right after I rebuild that Jaguar 1990 XJ12 - in my spare time - hahahahha. First a word of warning. Do not try to convert a oil/gas/electric one to coal forget the details just don't do it. If you want a coal AGA fine, good luck in finding one, as they were never sold in the US and importing that 1200# monster from the UK is a shipping magnates dream. Getting one from a US source, that guy in PA does not know much about these but did have one in his basement that he wanted a ton of money for but it is in a million pieces and I doubt he knows how to reconstruct it correctly. A Rayburn - why? They are just AGAs with boilers on (although some AGAs have smaller boilers) and they are very weak central heaters (30,000 BTU if you are lucky). Lehman have had that one in their catalog for at least 18 years, I'll bet it is the original stove. Offer to buy it installed and guaranteed - what they won't do that -right.

I originally wanted one only if it came with the owner.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHRDXZp1k5Q

AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, right! Martha tended her coal AGA in her barn every 4 hours, stop it I will break a rib. She was given it as a promo. The stove I am sure is still good but the owner is revolting these days. Cooking a meal for 30 people hahahahahahah, more on this lie if you are interested, the stove just runs out of heat and the burners/fires are small as they are on permanently. The whole video is BS, a Swede, Dahlen, invented it and licensed it to the UK about 1930. He would have loved Martha though as tragically he was blinded by an industrial accident as a young man -hahahahahahha - I slay myself.

Call her up she might sell it. We know it is unused. Psst when moving one you need to dismantle it first into billion pieces, please send me the video.

If you can find one and that is a big if, make sure you install the chimney right as the oven(s) exit through the chimney and it must be installed right. It's not just a piece of 6" stack, you need the enameled base plate to fix to it. If it is not done right you will love that apple pie with coal/sulphuric acid flavors. I wonder how many people in the US know how to do it? Good luck with that inspection - no UL listing and unlike those old baseburners there is not the expertise pool here. However, if you decide to go ahead I would love to come over and look at the finished installed article.

Credit where credit is due, they ran the best marketing campaign ever and a ton of uninformed US housewives crave one to this day. Save your money.

Thanks Josh for the heads up about Holloway's in Simsbury. I'll take my wife on a field trip to see the Aga this weekend.

I did speak with Linda Adams @ Aga Installations about the coal-fired Aga, she sent a picture and it looks good. Based on the picture the unit is assembled. I would buy it and place the pieces in dry storage if the unit is that rare and desirable?

I agree that the old oil-fired Aga's that use the wicks are very big fuel hogs. I would steer clear of those, but the new condensing boilers are supposedly much more fuel efficient.

I would buy it and place the pieces in dry storage if the unit is that rare and desirable?

Except there is a million over the other side of the pond. Buy a container load and make a bigger fortune and there are no coal ones with condensing boilers. Psst, their unit is not assembled and he wanted about $6000 five years ago and then wanted another $2000 just to assemble it at your house, not install it just assemble it and back then he would not sell it unless he assembled it but times change. The good news is that as you would be the one thousandth person to look it over you are entitled to a free book of green shield stamps.