How to Replace the Door Washers on an Aga Range Cooker

[Video guide at bottom of page!]

Aga range cookers should have plastic washers between the door hinge and the hinge bracket on the front of the cooker. They serve two purposes.

• First is to reduce the wear on the metal surfaces. Over decades metal rubbing on metal will distort the shape of the hinge and make your door wobbly and loose. Far better for the wear to happen to an easily replaced plastic washer!
• Second is that when two pieces of metal are placed next to each other they naturally want to become the same temperature. If you are missing the washers or they are damaged this means that heat from your cooker flows into the outer section of the door and bypasses the insulation inside it! Plastic is a poor conductor of heat so reduces this heat transfer and improves efficiency.

You can buy replacement washers here, it's one of the many spare parts we stock, and then follow the instructions below to fit them. You can do this on a hot Aga range cooker but it is safer (and less sweaty!) to do it on a cold or cool cooker. 

1. Fold a large thick towel in half and place it on the floor below the Aga range cooker door you are about to work on. 
2. Open the door to a 90 degree angle to cooker. Grip top and bottom and gently lift directly / straight upward until the pins below the door hinger are free of the cooker hinge. Don't yank too hard, do everything slowly, gently and deliberately. Don't rush it and drop the door or knock it on the cooker front. 
3. Place the door with enamel down on the towel. Remove any existing plastic washers, or the remains of, from the pins on the door or the cooker hinge if present.
4. Use sponge scourer and some washing up liquid to clean the pin, door hinge and cooker hinge - may as well while you are here!
5. Place a washer over the pin hole on the cooker hinge and then replace the door. You'll need to be very accurate or have a friend guide the door pins into the holes over the washers.
6. Close the door, you are done! 

You can use more than one washer if necessary / possible - this can be a good idea on very worn hinges and straighten wonky doors! Using more than one also increases the efficiency benefits by further separating the metal elements.