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January 2023 updated.
To check and find a AGA Registered Engineer (ex AGA employees trained by AGA) click here:
So my original post from a few years ago is here:
I have got a bit confused lately by the mention of a qualification that I have never heard about before. Someone told me that for any work to be carried out on their @AGA that work had to be carried out by an AGA Certified Engineer to keep their AGA Care cover intact and not to invalidate it.
As they were referring to replacing the chrome dome on their Deluxe AGA it seems odd to me that you would need to have done any sort of course with AGA Rangemaster to be able to do this when it is relatively straight forward, and I don't think taking apart a lid would be something they would have covered in any sort of training anyway, and certainly no certification scheme. If I wanted to call myself an AGA Certified Engineer how would I go about getting this accolade? I'm just doing some refurbishment of AGAs, replacing the lids, and seals all straight forward stuff. Surely you don't need a certification? Is there really any certification I can get for this? I'm pretty sure it's unlikely.
Looking through the list of courses that AGA run at The AGA Training Centre there is no mention of any sort of certification scheme that can be completed or any certification that can be passed so its all a puzzle to me. There are OFTEC qualifications and Gas Safe certifications but these are not 'AGA certifications' and as far as I can see if you wanted to specialise in just servicing electric AGAs all you need to do to become 'AGA trained at Telford' is to go on their 2 day Electric AGA course. Would this mean I'd also be an AGA Certified Engineer too? There doesn't seem to be any sort of courses for dismantling or putting together an AGA, but as I understand it if you are employed by AGA then you'd would go through this in your training. Update: These courses are no longer run by AGA.
So this maybe the AGA Certified Engineer Qualification; you have been employed or are employed by AGA and have gone through their employed engineer training. The courses at The AGA Training Centre are open to anyone who wants to service AGA cookers and you can just choose the course you want to go on, pay the course fee, and then off you go. From what I can see the OFTEC one would be relatively straight forward to obtain for me, you don't need the gas experience over a number of years and it just depends on your background, but really I don't want it as I have an AGA cleaning company!
I rang up my local AGA dealer (Spillers of Chard) who I have been using for the last 14 years and they said that their engineers were trained at Telford which could mean anything from the 2 day electric AGA course to a few weeks training if they have gone for all the other courses.
But in all I think that AGA Certified Engineers is a made up term and really they are Certified Engineers, either OFTEC or Gas Safe, that work on AGAs, and have been on one of the courses at The AGA Training Centre in Telford. But I could be wrong watch out for my update... they may all have an AGA Certified Engineer Qualification on their walls!
Update May 2020. Still No AGA Certified Engineers.
I've come back in May 2020 to update my old post I wrote quite a few years ago when I was having poor response from AGA customer service team. One of my employees had scratched AGA Chrome Domes at the end of a job. It was an accident and as I had the spares I offered to go back to replace them. But the owner said that AGA had told her that only AGA Certified Engineers could do the replacement under the terms of the AGA Care Plan she had on the cooker and the cost to us would be £450. Which I thought was unfair.
All my searching and speaking to AGA and checking out courses that AGA were then were running provided to be unfruitful. There was no such thing as an AGA Certified Engineer.
I still think there is no such thing as an AGA Certified Engineer. But if you have an AGA Care Plan you need to speak to them - AGA - before you get any work carried out on your AGA that is in addition to that covered by the Care Plan. If the wording is still in the contract I think it just means AGA need to approve the engineer that does the fix. It is just the terms of the agreement.
Things have changed with AGA and now there are AGA Registered Engineers. These are independent engineers that used to be employed by AGA. AGA made them all redundant but, from what I can see, gave each of them a AGA Registration Badge so they could show some level of expertise, gained from working for AGA, when they became independent.
There is a network of these AGA Registered Engineers. How do you find them? It's a good question and the only way you can find them is on the AGA website on find an AGA Registered Engineer page - see link below.
So my recommendation is don't phone AGA but do the search on the page and find one of the AGA Registered Engineers. They have a badge next to their listing. Phone them.
As from my own experience of phoning AGA on their support line they redirect you to Repairtech the company that now do the servicing and repairs for AGA. I've seen on social media that some of these engineers aren't that experienced with AGAs. So brings you back to the question about what standards AGA now require - the bar has been lowered significantly by using Repairtech - and if there was such thing has a required standard for an engineer AGA provide there isn't now.
It is best if you can find an established local AGA repair company or find one of those AGA Registered Engineers by going to link below. They have access to all AGA parts and can carry out any warranty repairs, and of course any servicing or fixing out of warranty.
