G'day
John A,
Interesting project there! Still very much the Rolls-Royce of combustion stoves, the AGA's. At least these days with the interwebs, it's not hard to find some good info on DIY restorations.
The first bit of info you come across on these, is that they were always supplied 'CKD', and 'erected' on site in the customer's kitchen. And it's not really recommended to transport them assembled, as it's all too easy to do serious damage.
This UK mob have some really detailed rundowns, starting with determining what model you have;
https://www.blakeandbull.co.uk/pages/aga-basics-the-blake-bull-guideAnd this bloke has blogged his resto;
https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/the-aga-saga/On something like this, even more than on old OPE machines, getting the fasteners out is usually the most difficult part of dismantling. Helps a lot to have really good penetrating lubricant on hand, and lots of patience.
As they use things like very large slotted head screws, it's very helpful if you can fabricate your own tools for these jobs.
A four oven model like that one, would have been the size for a big station or hotel kitchen. One of these came out of the hotel at Woods Point, Vic ~10 years ago now, when the kitchen had its first major upgrade since the 1940's! It's now a display item in the restored former bakery across the road from the pub.
What fuel is yours set up for? A lot of these that were built for coke firing got converted to heating oil in the 1970's, when 'gas coke' became unavailable due to the old gasworks plants closing, as Natural Gas came in.
There was a 2-oven AGA with this setup in an old homestead share house I lived in out of Benambra, Vic in the early 1990's, but it had fallen into disuse. We managed OK with a Vulcan plug-in 'stovette', electric frying pans, and after I moved in, a microwave.
Probably a good idea to beware of items like old 'rope style' heatproof seals on it too [particularly on the lids/doors], as there is definite potential for these to contain chrysotile [White] asbestos.
