"did I leave the oven on?"

[JeenLeen]

There's a cliche worry about "Did I leave the oven on?" or "the stove on?", and I've felt that concern sometimes.
But i was thinking. All the stove being on (or the oven) does is generate some heat. I assume there's a finite heat level it reaches, based on what you have the oven or stove set to. It seems like there's no real fire hazard from having it on in at least what are my normal conditions (oven empty or has drying cast iron in it, stove empty or clean metal pots/cast iron on it).

I realize certain things being on a stove burner or in the oven might burn, producing a bad smell, or possibly catch fire if left too long. And there's wasted electricity and making your kitchen extra hot. But let's assume it's just clean metal pans or nothing that the heat is getting put 'into'. Assuming there's nothing too close that could catch on fire or melt, is there any real danger to leaving the oven or stove on?

[Unavenger]

No, you should be fine. AGA-brand ovens are always on, and this doesn't tend to result in anything bad happening, at least IME.

[Cazero]

Kids these days, with their shmangled electricity making everything safe and practical.
The trope comes from old-fashioned gas ovens where the gas must be ignited manualy. They're "blowing up the building" dangerous with the burner off, and still a huge waste of gas with the burner on.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Kids these days, with their shmangled electricity making everything safe and practical.
The trope comes from old-fashioned gas ovens where the gas must be ignited manualy.

That's what I came here to say!

I'd guess even with electric ovens, it's not good to leave them on for weeks at a time. It'd probably accelerate the wear and tear, especially if it's a fan oven, and it might be bad for the seals/gaskets. I've had elements blow up in electric ovens before, too. That's probably more likely if you leave them on for ages. There may also be risks in terms of the surroundings heating up if the oven is on for too long. Could easily be flammable materials nearby.

[Ebon_Drake]

My old housemate had an annoying habit of leaving the hob plates on when using the electric cooker. They can kick up a surprisingly high amount of heat when they're left running, especially without a pot or something on top. I could tell when he'd done it because I'd open the kitchen door and hit a wall of heat.

There's also a risk with leaving the hob/stove on unattended that someone else (particularly children or animals) might not realise that it's on and could burn themselves by touching it.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Heck, they could knock something onto or next to the stove and start a fire that way.

[Spacewolf]

Kids these days, with their shmangled electricity making everything safe and practical.
The trope comes from old-fashioned gas ovens where the gas must be ignited manualy. They're "blowing up the building" dangerous with the burner off, and still a huge waste of gas with the burner on.

Are Gas ovens that rare nowadays? Seems like a pretty even spilt to me, hell just last year a house blew up on a main road in my home town due to this issue. (No one was hurt thankfully)

[snowblizz]

Kids these days, with their shmangled electricity making everything safe and practical.

No electrical appliance that is on and drawing power is really safe. I've seen an iron at my parents catch fire right by the outlet since the cable was worn. Twice.


Even if in principle the stove only gets so hot, you can't always guarantee that something that might not take the heat as well somehow finds it's way onto it eventually starting a fire. A lose leaf of paper is caught in a gust of air throguh ventilation, hits the stove starts burning and hits all that grease you were definitely cleaning up tomorrow in the airuouttake and hey presto who have a new mystery for The Fireinvestigators.

Which I'm surprised is not already tv-show. Unless it is.


It won't be as catastrophic as unattended gas but I'd not leave electrical appliances like oven or stove on if I leave. Apparently it's such a concern the local insurance company paid to install free stove guards (a device that shuts the stove of if it detects unattended heat so to speak)

Insurance companies are all about spending money on old-wives tales right?

[Alent]

This thread reminded me of one of those "wait, WHAT Happened?" things that came up when my Grandmother's dementia got bad enough for us to notice... She managed to damage her oven's Electric Rangetop by leaving it on for an unknown length of time.

Apparently, if you leave one of the electric ranges on full heat long enough, with a large enough and heavy enough piece of cast iron sitting on it, it can deform the glass. I don't know if it was due to a defect in her oven or just one of those "special" things that happens with dementia patients that no one else can reproduce... but yeah, when we went down to take care of her, the range had this nice big misshapen divot with burn marks in the glass from where the cast iron skillet was sitting. In hindsight, I wish I'd taken a picture of it.

[Vinyadan]

There's a cliche worry about "Did I leave the oven on?" or "the stove on?", and I've felt that concern sometimes.
But i was thinking. All the stove being on (or the oven) does is generate some heat. I assume there's a finite heat level it reaches, based on what you have the oven or stove set to. It seems like there's no real fire hazard from having it on in at least what are my normal conditions (oven empty or has drying cast iron in it, stove empty or clean metal pots/cast iron on it).

I realize certain things being on a stove burner or in the oven might burn, producing a bad smell, or possibly catch fire if left too long. And there's wasted electricity and making your kitchen extra hot. But let's assume it's just clean metal pans or nothing that the heat is getting put 'into'. Assuming there's nothing too close that could catch on fire or melt, is there any real danger to leaving the oven or stove on?

Did you leave the fridge on? Because those are known to cause the most fires.

[Ninja_Prawn]

Did you leave the fridge on? Because those are known to cause the most fires.

Because most of them are full of propane or isobutane! They're a significant fire hazard even when they're not running.

[Kneenibble]

As a wee lad, I didn't know about gas ovens. When I heard about people killing themselves by putting their head in the oven, I thought it meant holding your head in there until it burnt you to death.

[HandofShadows]

As a wee lad, I didn't know about gas ovens. When I heard about people killing themselves by putting their head in the oven, I thought it meant holding your head in there until it burnt you to death.

People kill themselves by putting their heads in the oven without the burners going so they breath in all the gas and suffocate.

[Ninja_Prawn]

People kill themselves by putting their heads in the oven without the burners going so they breath in all the gas and suffocate.

Better than the alternative of doing it with the burners on, though...

[Manga Shoggoth]

As a wee lad, I didn't know about gas ovens. When I heard about people killing themselves by putting their head in the oven, I thought it meant holding your head in there until it burnt you to death.

People kill themselves by putting their heads in the oven without the burners going so they breath in all the gas and suffocate.

These days with natural gas, yes. But in the days of the original trope the gas in the oven (coal gas) was actively toxic (the active ingredient, so to speak, appears to have been the 10% carbon monoxide).

(Of course, if you lit the gas it wouldn't work - the CO would burn with the rest of it...)

[halfeye]

People kill themselves by putting their heads in the oven without the burners going so they breath in all the gas and suffocate.

No. It used to contain carbon-monoxide, which is lethal in small concentrations. It's the same gas that is a killer when people suicide by breathing in motor vehicle exhaust, it breaks down pretty quickly on exposure to air so it doesn't get the rest of us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas that is slightly less dense than air. It is toxic to animals that use hemoglobin as an oxygen carrier (both invertebrate and vertebrate, including humans) when encountered in concentrations above about 35 ppm

Coal gas, which was widely used before the 1960s for domestic lighting, cooking, and heating, had carbon monoxide as a significant fuel constituent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas

<edit>

I was too slow, ninja'd.

[Calthropstu]

At my apartment, the fridge is right next to the oven. The burner has heated the side of the fridge and it is beginning to warp. I'd hate to think what would happen if I left it on for a week.

[Knaight]

There's also the matter of earthquake prone areas and similar - if the stove is on and there's nothing on it then a mild earthquake happens you might well be in trouble if something falls on it.

[Lemmy]

Are gas ovens really that rare? I don't ever remember not having one... I do have two electric mini-ovens, but they are mostly backup or for trips.

[ve4grm]

Are gas ovens really that rare? I don't ever remember not having one... I do have two electric mini-ovens, but they are mostly backup or for trips.

I don't know where you're located, but they are far more rare in North America than in the UK (and maybe the rest of Europe).

My best guess is that NA was still in expanding mode when electric ovens were introduced, so new construction got electric, while much of the UK already had gas ovens installed? I don't know if this is actually the full truth, though.

[Khedrac]

I don't know where you're located, but they are far more rare in North America than in the UK (and maybe the rest of Europe).

My best guess is that NA was still in expanding mode when electric ovens were introduced, so new construction got electric, while much of the UK already had gas ovens installed? I don't know if this is actually the full truth, though.

It depends where you are in the UK (or wherever) - very few of the houses I grew up in had mains gas (my parents moved a lot). Despite that we did have a gas cooker (and heaters) - bottle gas, which proved very useful during the electricity cuts of the 70s.

I think mains gas is usually cheaper than electricity for heating and cooking (that's a guess), but installing the gas pipes to connect new developments is more expensive. Also in the UK coal gas was pretty widely adopted before electricity (or natural gas) became an option. Conversion from coal to natural gas was relatively easy so gas remained available and already in place - and thus got used.
America is a big country (really huge) - and that means gas will be much more concentrated in urban areas, and probably only those which are close to existing gas infrastructure will have gas connections - anywhere else is just not economic.

[tomandtish]

I don't know where you're located, but they are far more rare in North America than in the UK (and maybe the rest of Europe).

My best guess is that NA was still in expanding mode when electric ovens were introduced, so new construction got electric, while much of the UK already had gas ovens installed? I don't know if this is actually the full truth, though.

But far more rare is not the same as rare. it also depends on what you are talking about.

Just eyeballing this chart, Electric RANGES (combined oven and cook top) outsell gas ranges by only 3 to 2 (so 2 gas ranges sold for every three electric), which means gas ranges are about 40% of the ranges sold.

Where the big difference comes in is separate ovens/cook tops. When done separately they appear to be extremely more likely to be electric than gas. Probably because the ovens are often mounted IN the wall/cabinet structure.

At least in the Austin area, gas is extremely common. It was a big shock when we learned our house would NOT have access to gas, esp. since there was gas running 200 yards away. All our rental properties before that (4) had gas cooking.

Edit: Might help if I actually added the link to the chart....

[Lemmy]

I don't know where you're located, but they are far more rare in North America than in the UK (and maybe the rest of Europe).

My best guess is that NA was still in expanding mode when electric ovens were introduced, so new construction got electric, while much of the UK already had gas ovens installed? I don't know if this is actually the full truth, though.

Odd... When I was living in the US, I also had gas ovens. Maybe I'm just (un?)lucky, I guess.

[Honest Tiefling]

Just eyeballing this chart, Electric RANGES (combined oven and cook top) outsell gas ranges by only 3 to 2 (so 2 gas ranges sold for every three electric), which means gas ranges are about 40% of the ranges sold.

What I found odd is that induction isn't included on that chart. Is it really so smancy-fancy that it isn't worth including, or is it counted as electric?

I live in California, and to my recollection, most properties I've seen had gas. My family puts in gas ranges for tenant properties, haven't had complaints yet. Maybe they are afraid of us or just glad to have a dog-friendly place?

[Rogar Demonblud]

That might also be tied to California's problems with rolling (brown/black)outs. The fewer things that draw power, the better.

Out here, we have a lot of gas appliances because high winds will often take out the power lines. The middle of winter is not a good time to lose your furnace or ability to cook for half a week.

[ve4grm]

America is a big country (really huge) - and that means gas will be much more concentrated in urban areas, and probably only those which are close to existing gas infrastructure will have gas connections - anywhere else is just not economic.

This is definitely a factor. I know that here in Canada, almost no rural homes have gas lines. Most use electric baseboard heating. I'd guess that even in smaller towns gas lines aren't that common (though more common than farmhouses, of course).

But even in my house, in the middle of the city, we have a gas line and gas furnace/water heater, but electric range.

Perhaps it's just the perception of safety since there isn't an open flame? I couldn't say.

EDIT: We also have reliable, relatively inexpensive, and widespread hydroelectric power, which probably influences it. Though I'd expect more electric water heaters if that was all it was.

[Knaight]

What I found odd is that induction isn't included on that chart. Is it really so smancy-fancy that it isn't worth including, or is it counted as electric?

I live in California, and to my recollection, most properties I've seen had gas. My family puts in gas ranges for tenant properties, haven't had complaints yet. Maybe they are afraid of us or just glad to have a dog-friendly place?

It's counted as electric. There's no real reason to split them when looking at power sources and the like, which is how those comparisons are generally made.

[Telonius]

No. It used to contain carbon-monoxide, which is lethal in small concentrations. It's the same gas that is a killer when people suicide by breathing in motor vehicle exhaust, it breaks down pretty quickly on exposure to air so it doesn't get the rest of us.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas

<edit>

I was too slow, ninja'd.

It's also produced by burning just about any fuel. Even modern gas fuel (that doesn't contain it as an ingredient) produces it as a byproduct. The key thing is adequate venting. A couple of years ago I was renting a place that had a gas stove but didn't have adequate venting. The "vent" that was supposed to be installed was actually just a fan above the stove that wasn't connected to anything, so it just kind of blew everything around. Standard US carbon monoxide detectors trip at much higher levels than the danger starts at. We were getting regular levels that were just below where it would trip, with spikes that lasted for less time than the higher-level setting needed to give the alarm. If we hadn't noticed something was up and gotten a model that detected lower levels (had to have the thing shipped in from China) it could have been extraordinarily bad. As it was we all had mild-to-severe cases of CO poisoning and had to vacate the house for a few days while the landlord had it fixed.

(This is the same rental that was destroyed by a tree about 6 months later. I suspect there's some sort of a curse on the property).

[Knaight]

It's also produced by burning just about any fuel. Even modern gas fuel (that doesn't contain it as an ingredient) produces it as a byproduct. The key thing is adequate venting. A couple of years ago I was renting a place that had a gas stove but didn't have adequate venting.

This is why generators in particular tend to have big warnings on them about not using them inside. Any fuel will produce it with combustion, and if you use something that's a real fuel hog it will produce a lot of it.

[5a Violista]

There's a cliche worry about "Did I leave the oven on?" or "the stove on?", and I've felt that concern sometimes.
But i was thinking. All the stove being on (or the oven) does is generate some heat. I assume there's a finite heat level it reaches, based on what you have the oven or stove set to. It seems like there's no real fire hazard from having it on in at least what are my normal conditions (oven empty or has drying cast iron in it, stove empty or clean metal pots/cast iron on it).

I realize certain things being on a stove burner or in the oven might burn, producing a bad smell, or possibly catch fire if left too long. And there's wasted electricity and making your kitchen extra hot. But let's assume it's just clean metal pans or nothing that the heat is getting put 'into'. Assuming there's nothing too close that could catch on fire or melt, is there any real danger to leaving the oven or stove on?

There's multiple problems with leaving the oven on, and pretty much all of them have been listed already by others so I'm probably just going to repeat a lot with this list, but here's a list of things that can go wrong if you leave your oven on:

(1) There's actually not a finite heat that it puts out. Sure, it will reach a finite temperature (usually what you set it to) but it continuously outputs heat until it runs out of power or fuel. This has a couple of implications:
--(a) The longer you leave it on, the higher temperature the surrounding room will reach. Unless you have good circulation and ventilation in your house, what this means is that outside the oven will eventually reach the same temperature as inside the oven, regardless of insulation (well, technically, insulation combined with insulation thickness and outside circulation will determine the max temperature, but it's a good approximation).
--(b) Since outside the oven will eventually reach a high temperature, this is a major problem for any flammable walls, cabinets, cloth, plastic, glass, etc nearby
--(c) Nothing is heatproof, only heat resistant. Everything, over a long enough time at a high enough temperature, will eventually get damaged or destroyed due to heat. This includes the insulation or structural elements of the oven.
(2) Unmonitored electrical devices can be dangerous if left plugged in or running and something goes wrong.
--(a) Electrical fires is a thing that happens.
--(b) If a circuit breaker fails there could be a problem
--(c) Electricity running through any sort of resistor or wire can produce heat. Usually it's small but if there's a problem with the wiring then the wire acts just like a toaster and melts/burns everything around it.
(3) If you leave gas running without burning it, it's an explosion hazard.
--(a) If it ignites then that is bad.
--(b) If you breathe it in then that's also bad.
(4) Burning gas/etc produces CO₂ and CO, among potentially other things (depending on what's burning)
--(a) The CO₂ isn't all that dangerous by itself, because all you have to do is go outside and breathe fresh air for bit and you'll be fine as long as you have a good respiratory system
--(b) The CO, however, stays in your bloodstream for days to weeks, preventing your cells from taking in oxygen (because the CO is blocking it)
--(c) Children, the sick, and the elderly are especially affected by this because it's harder for them to get out on their own and they generally have worse respiratory systems than adults.
(5) Grease buildups and leftover food left in the oven/on the stove can burn and cause problems.
(6) Leaving on your oven will rack up your gas/electricity bills.

Nearly all of these aren't a problem if you leave it at low temperatures or have a high-quality oven with good ventilation, but the potential is there for something to happen if you just leave the oven on for hours or days.