How much does an Aga cost to run?

According to Valley Girl, Jane Wheatley in The Times on Saturday Magazine the average consumption of an oil fired Aga is 60 litres a week
Jane writes

"All over the country people are facing up to the hideous cost of running their Agas. "We should really get rid of ours," my friend Mark said the other day, "but how will we be middle class then?" The Times 12 April 2008
I have just been out to our oil tank to work out how much oil we've used since our last delivery on 11th February. The Aga has used 376 litres in 8 weeks so that is an average of 47 litres a week. My last oil delivery was 40p per litre so its costing me £18.80 a week to run the Aga. Thats all our cooking, hot water and, of course, drying the washing. Is this reasonable?

I can't bring myself to work out if I'd save anything by having an electric cooker, tumbler dryer and used the immersion heater for water because I wouldn't want to give up my Aga. I'm sure that the cost of replacing the Aga with a cooker, clothes dryer and water heater would negate any saving in running costs. Of course if we ever get around to installing a wind turbine to generate electricity it may be worth making the swop.

Incidentally, we have used 867 litres of oil since 11th February for the central heating! That is costing us an average of £43.35 a week. Roll on the summer........although the Aga uses oil all year round we can usually manage without the central heating for 4-5 months.

Ness Gardens - Happy memories

When I got home from work this evening the postman had delivered a copy of Insight, the University of Liverpool alumni magazine. Being 'in the business' I like to look through this and CAM the alumni magazine from the University of Cambridge to keep up with what is going on and to spot any of my contempories who may be mentioned.

The current edition of Insight has a two page article on Ness Gardens with an invitation to anyone who carried out research at Ness Gardens to send in their memories and photos.

All my photos are slides and, when I searched them out this evening they were still sellotaped into their boxes since the last time we moved (or maybe the time before that) but I've just spent a happy hour going through them. UnfortunatelyI can't find the bit that came with my scanner that can be used for scanning slides.

I did my PhD research at Ness Gardens from 1982-85 and was there during the restoration of the Gardens under the Director Ken Hulme. I remember the opening of the Conservatory in 1984 and the excellent departmental garden parties every summer. I keep in touch with a few of the other PhD students who worked at Ness at the same time; Dave Watson, Margaret Hill and Jill Thompson.

Science and Madagascan conservation

Chris and colleagues had a paper published in today's issue of Science plus a front cover photo of a lined day gecko from Madagascar.


The paper 'Aligning Conservation Priorities Across Taxa in Madagascar with High-Resolution Planning Tools' was picked up by:
The Times 'Scientists find new technique to save endangered creatures from croaking',
The Independent 'The miracle in Madagascar - a blueprint for saving species' and
The Daily Telegraph 'Madagascan wildlife mapped using satellites'

Picture from stock.xchng by anudman