.......use a Rayburn?!

[Loobyloo]

In a few weeks I am moving into a cottage in Somerset which has an oil fired rayburn which the hot water runs off.

I have no idea whatsoever how to use it, in anyway shape or form.

So if anyone can offer some hints and tips on how to run it, cook with it etc I'd be eternally grateful!

Thanks!

[pond]

http://www.rayburn-web.co.uk/Prodin/Ray ... 20fuel.pdf

Try this link. It is a pdf of user manual for Rayburn Royal and Regent. It is mainly for solid fuel but should be useful.

I hope you've saved up for the cost of oil. I've heard of AGAs using £70-80 of oil a week!!!

Pond

[red]

dont panic!

We moved here to a gas fired rayburn, and my first reaction was.. it had to go. but we had no money - having spent more than we have on the house, and the rayburn did the hot water and CH too (does yours?) and had no other cooker.. so had to learn fast.

The main thing.. it costs a fortune to run, so we tend to only have it on idling.. ie turned right down, and cook everything very slow. it works. its a nice benevolent heat. you just have to plan ahead. lots.

buy a kettle you can put on the hob, and the rayburn cook book, and make drop scones as soon as you can. then you will learn to love your rayburn.

we turn ours off in summer (to save money) and have lecky cooker now, but i burn more things in that. and i miss coming down in the morning and just leaning against the warm rayburn.

we plan to replace it for a wood fired one. just as soon as finances allow

good luck - let us know how you get on.

[prison break fan]

I can't help you with your Rayburn, but I have a wood/solid fuel one and it is the love of my life! I can't imagine being without it! It heats the water, runs three rads and cooking on it is fantastic. I scrounge wood wherever I can and this makes it very economical. pbf.

[JulieSherris]

Hey Looby - again, I have no idea about an oil stove - ours is a solid fuel stanley & in the winter, we burn mainly peat.
Ours supplies all of our hot water & all of our radiators around the house - we've not had it on for over a week now though (good job we have a leccy shower, huh? ) but we were planning to light it once a week for a good tank of water for general cleaning through the summer anyway & that then gets me out of doing too much housework the rest of the week!!

As for cooking - well, I love my stanley now I have gotten used to it! The kettle sits on it all day long through the winter & there's normally a pot of stew somewhere around.... or a bowl of dough rising.... it makes you feel quite smug when you know that it's cost virtually nothing to cook a christmas dinner as well!!

Learn to love your Rayburn - and like Red says, leaning against it first thing on a chilly morning is fab..... especially if, like me, you open the oven door to warm the nether bits....

[grannymags]

We used to have an Aga (solid fuel) which I loved. To come down in the morning to a lovely warm kitchen was heaven. A turkey in the bottom oven overnight was so succulent, (I am vegetarian but my family raved over it) and continuous hot water in the kettle. Bread rising was so easy but don't forget like I did! I put the dough to rise on the cooker top, forgot and went shopping! When I came back there was bread dough all over the cooker and on to the floor!!

When we moved we didn't have room for an Aga but if I had known what would happen I would have dismantled my Aga and stored it in my garage. The new owners ripped it out and put it in the skip!!!! It was only three years old!!

Anyway, the Rayburn. Rayburns are more controllable than Agas which remain at the same heat at all times. My sister in law has a Rayburn (woodburning) and when she wants to do some baking she turns it up in the morning so it is at the correct heat for the baking. Cost is not the issue here as she has access to plenty of wood to burn. It seems to me that if you keep it turned low except when you need to cook it may not be too expensive to run but it does depend on the cost of the oil. Better to have an alternative way of cooking in case of fuel difficulties or very hot weather. There are books on cooking on and using Rayburns and I am sure you will find lots of info here and on the web.

I have an electric oven now but I still forget to turn it on when I am baking!!

Good luck with your Rayburn. You will love it once you are used to it.

Maggie

[Loobyloo]

Thanks for the advice guys, we will have an leccy oven a well so I don't need to panic too much just yet.

I am worried about the cost of running it on oil but can't seem to find any info on the web of how much it costs on average. I'm wondering how easy it would be to convert to wood, which we would much rather have, and if the landlord would let us do that?.....

.....Hmm will need to suck up to him once we've moved in and see!

I've decided a rayburn book is definitely the way forward so will start looking online. The only thing I could find in the shops was £25!! Too much for my unemployed pocket!!

[red]

try the new rayburn cook book its about 8 quid - had lots of recipes i would use without owning a rayburn. and lots of practical advice about the rayburn itself.. like which shelf to use etc.

you would only be able to convert the rayburn to wood if it was a solid fuel one that was converted to oil - ie you could convert it back. if it was made to run on oil.. then no.

[Thomzo]

Make sure the hot water tank is well insulated. Wrap another jacket round it. I, too, used to have a solid fuel Rayburn which I really miss. The hot water tank was so well insulated that I could have a bath two or three days after the Rayburn went out.

Enjoy.

Zoe

[the.fee.fairy]

When i was at Uni we had a gas rayburn...it was the only reason we decided to rent that particular house..

We kept it on the very lowest setting all the time, otherwise it took too long to heat up. I wish i'd known about rayburn recipe books then...i could have made so many more meals!!

I did like making jacket potatoes - stick them in the bottom and leave them there. 4 hours late, perfect jackets! And it made fab cakes and biscuits. Stews were really easy too, just chuck everything in a large saucepan and leave it on the hob. I have a turkish housemate who used to make some very strange tea as well, he'd stick some leaves in a saucepan with some water and leave it for days on end.

Basically, anything that you need to cook slowly and thoroughly, use the rayburn. Anything that you need to cook quickly, use the electric. If you leave the rayburn on low all the time, then it shouldn't take too long to heat up to full, and you can cook anything on it, but if not, ours used to take up to 45 minutes to cook a pot of pasta...

[Thurston Garden]

I have a 5 year old oil Ryaburn and love it. It's actually quite economical to cook on, but gets expensive when doing the heating - partly because I live in an old house and partly because oil is so damned expensive.

It's worth watching car diesel prices - the Rayburn runs on 28 Seconds Kerosene which is, as I understand, pretty much the same a diesel. If diesel prices go up (or the oil barrel price for that matter) then Rayburn oil price will be going up too. You can get a discount for bulk buying depending on the size of your oil tank, but it's usually only a penny or two a litre and is sometimes not worth while. Remember and phone round all the oil supplers for a per litre price as their costs can vary wildly. (One benefit of oil over LPG is you are not tied to one supplier and can haggle!)

My Rayburn has three seven day timers - just like regular heating boiler timers, one for the cooker, one for hot water and the third for the heating. I have them peared down to the absolute minimum so as to use as little oil as possible. I batch cook maybe one Sunday a month and reheat in the Rayburn oven whilst boiling the kettle on the hotplate for my tea. The Rayburn, being made of cast iron holds its heat for ages, so it does not need to be on for long if you are only reheating. I dont have a microwave but this would cut oil use down even more.

When using it for proper cooking, I think it's a fantastic piece of kit. I cook mainly in the oven, thus conserving heat/fuel and as the ovens are vented up the flue, you get no steam/condensation/smells in the house. The downside to this is that you HAVE to set a timer beacuse it's so easy to forget you have something cooking in there! I will start a pan of soup on the hotplate and once it's boiling, stick a lid on and put it in the oven. I always leave the oven gloves over the hot pan when I take it out to remind me not to touch the pan - its so easy to forget the pan is red hot and pick up the lid which then sticks to your fingers

Rice is sooooo easy: one part rice to two parts boiling water in an oven proof bowl with tinfoil on top, and stick it in the oven for 20 mins - perfect rice every time. Porridge can be done the same way, or left overnight in the bottom oven ready for the morning. The roof of the oven acts like a grill, and the floor of the oven as another hotplate - handy for dinner parties, or Christmas when you need loads of pans on the go!

I make toast on the hot plate - and drop scone and pancakes too. You can fold newly washed clothes carefully and lay them on the lids (be careful about the gap between them as this is very hot...I have sheets with scorch marks to prove it!) and they dont need ironed! Make a pot of coffee and stand it at the back of the Rayburn to keep warm.

Oh, and the towel rail on the front is the best place to park your derrierre on a cold day! when I have friends round, sometimes there's a queue to lean against it and get warmed up!

As Red suggested, buy the Rayburn Cookbook -it's well worth the money!

Edited to provide link for pbf's free Rayburn Cookbook!

[Thomzo]

If you can persuade your landlord to let you, then put a drying rail above your Rayburn. I had a simple wooden rack above mine (bought for a few pounds at Ikea) and I could dry a pair of jeans in an hour.

They are also really great in houses that tend to be damp as the constant heat keeps them dry.

Cheers
Zoe