It all began back in 1993 when we bought a virtually derelict house in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England. It was a mess and needed everything doing to it. In the kitchen was this cold, dirty and slightly imposing Aga with a lable attached to it saying "needs new water seal, do not use". Oh great, we thought, what's one of those, where can we get one, and where does it go? On the front of the Aga was a door which had an embosed warning message on it:
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KEEP TIGHTLY CLOSED |
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This was not the kind of cooking appliance we were used to. User friendly was not the first thing that came to mind to a couple of green and conventional types like ourselves.
The next few months were spent making the house as comfortable as we could, within the budget that we had, and given that the Aga was the only means that we had of cooking and generating hot water it was one of the first things on the list.
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The water seal that caused so much concern early on was just a rubber washer that needed to be fitted to the Aga's water drainage valve and behind that ominous door was an oil burner supplied and fitted by, apparently, Don Engineering when the Aga was converted from solid fuel to Oil fired. |
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We cleaned the whole thing up using soda crystals and a great deal of elbow grease and eventually got the thing looking, not only like it might run, but like we might want to cook in it.