What do YOU leave on when you leave the house?

[MSSANDRA]

So..at Easter lunch my DN made a comment about throwing their clothes in the dryer before she went to bed. My MIL about freaked out. When I mentioned the ham cooked while we were at church she REALLY freaked. Reality is we leave the washer, dryer, or dishwasher on routinely when we leave or go to bed. We seldom leave food in the oven but our church is 5 minutes away and DH ran home between services to check on it. We do routinely leave the crock pot on but never the stove.

So how normal or abnormal are we? What appliances do you leave on when you leave the house or go to bed? No flaming, just sharing!

 

[momxx5]

I am a crazy worrier so I always unplug the toaster

That said, I use to run the wash machine when leaving the house....the washer & dryer are too old to leave on now. My son will sometimes run the dryer late at night when he needs his track/work out clothes dry and he is staying up to do homework.

We run the dishwasher during the night....last one to bed turns it on.

The crockpot is left on during the day....on low.

I think you are pretty normal as far as applicance go.

 

[rock_doctor]

To each his own. I have seen dryers catch fire and appliances short out. IMHO it is a big chance leaving these items on when you are not around and a definite concern to leave them running when you go to bed. I suspect a lot of people do it but i would not. I can't imagine how hard it would be to replace your stuff and restart your lives if something happens. To answer your question...everything is off when we leave the house and when we go to bed.

 

[tina.tina]

Turn off your water at the meter when you leave for vacation. My boss had an extra washing machine on his 3rd floor. Some kind of valve or something wore out while he was on vacation. The washing machine poured water the whole time he was gone and ruined stuff on all 3 levels of his home.

I have a friend who went to an evening long cub scout meeting, came home & found the same thing happened to her. She had a one story home that had a few inches of water standing in it. All of her oak floors warped after the flood hit them.

So, even if they're off, those appliances can wreak havoc!

 

[NVDisMom]

We leave the dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, and crockpot on when we are gone, if there is a reason to. The coffee maker is programmed to make our coffee before we get up. Laptops, phones, tablets, etc are charging around the clock. Printers and entertainment centers full of stuff are left plugged in all of the time. The microwave and oven are hard wired. The heater comes on when the temperature gets too cold, whether we are home or not, same with the a/c. The hot water heater frequently runs when we are gone. I consider this a normal risk we take in life. If I worried about something shorting out or flooding every time I left or went to bed, I would be turning the water off at the main and the electric off at the breaker box. Same thing for the gas, I suppose...so that we don't have an accidental explosion. I have insurance that will cover in the highly unlikely event of a catastrophe. I don't believe worrying about it every time I walk out the door is going to lessen my odds. Keep your appliances up to date and in reasonable good repair and I think your fine. Even our electric blankets and curling irons have auto shut off.

BUT I do insist the Christmas tree lights are off except when we are in the room with it. And vacation is a whole different story!

 

[Lumiere Lover]

I used to have a dryer that would run every 15 minutes for a wrinkle guard. I was super excited when this dryer broke!! I can now put clothes in my dryer and go to work, knowing they will be dry when I get home. I run our dishwasher, washer, dryer, and slow cooker when we are not home. That is what these appliances are for-they are time saving measures.

If I am going to be gone for more than 1 day, I don't leave any of these appliances running. If we leave for vacation, I unplug as many electrical devices (especially the automatic garage door opener) as possible, just to save energy.

I think your habits are very normal.

 

[deegack]

Turn off your water at the meter when you leave for vacation. My boss had an extra washing machine on his 3rd floor. Some kind of valve or something wore out while he was on vacation. The washing machine poured water the whole time he was gone and ruined stuff on all 3 levels of his home.

I have a friend who went to an evening long cub scout meeting, came home & found the same thing happened to her. She had a one story home that had a few inches of water standing in it. All of her oak floors warped after the flood hit them.

So, even if they're off, those appliances can wreak havoc!

They actually make a special attachment for washers that if there is a leak will turn the water off. When we put our washer on the main floor we installed it.

I will leave the washer dryer and dishwasher on and the crockpot.

 

[torinsmom]

I will not leave home with the washer or dryer running. The washer is because it sometimes gets off balance and I don't want it to be ruined if I can't balance the load. The dryer is because it is hot and I worry about a fire. I am also freaked out about crock pots, and I will not use one. I even unplug the toaster oven after I use it. Fire is one of my biggest fears. Oh, and I remove the knob from my oven. That is because you don't have to push it in to turn on the oven like you do the stove burners. One day I came home to an oven on BROIL. I think one of my cats got up there and brushed against the knob. It is much harder to turn the stub

The family I babysit for will never turn their dishwasher on at night again. Their cat woke them up one night and they discovered it was ON FIRE It took them forever to get the smoke smell out, and the cat got tuna the next day

 

[ziggystardust]

I am overly paranoid about leaving anything on. The only thing I will leave is the crock pot.

A friend of a friend left her dryer on while she ran up to the school (only a few blocks away) to go pick her her kid who was sick. In that time, the house caught fire and their dog ended up dying. They lived in the same block as the fire house.

 

[disny_luvr]

The only thing we leave on during the day is the crock-pot. At night before we go to bed, we start the dishwasher, so it runs during the night. When we go on vacation we unplug everything and usually turn our water off.

 

[SaraJayne]

Other than the furnace or a/c, nothing. Everything is run only while we are home.

If it's going to be dark when we come home, the outside lights are left on.

 

[mommadebbied]

I am a worry wart and I'm married to a firefighter, so nothing gets left on in our house

 

[Cruise]

I was in our home office one day and suddenly heard water running in the guest bathroom. My first thought was "Why is DH using the guest shower instead of the master?" Then I realized it wasn't the shower... something had broken on the toilet and water was pouring out all over the floor. Luckily I was right there and heard it and was able to turn the shut off valve. I can't imagine the flooding that would have occurred had we been out when it happened. This was just a random Tuesday.

I'm not going to turn off the water to the house every time we go to a movie. But I do leave the crockpot on regularly and sometimes the washer, dryer, and dishwasher. I never leave anything in the oven or on the stove though. I always unplug the iron after I use it too, but that's a habit I got from my Mom.

 

[karice2]

I leave on things that are normal or meant to be used unsupervised. The dishwasher has a timer to turn on at a certain time so I am assuming that it is ok to leave on. My coffee maker has a on and off timer, the dryer will shut off.

When I was in the middle of renovating my fixer upper and doing the work myself, I used to pray for an explosion so that I could just start over with insurance money since I was always finding something else that needed to be repaired when starting a new project.

 

[christineann]

Do not leave a toaster or toaster oven plugged in when it's not in use. You can research the fire incidents involving these, which can catch fire even when they aren't turned on (and I'm talking about the "name brand" ones, too). I work in the legal/insurance field, and we have had cases involving these appliances and fires.

I don't leave appliances on when I'm not home. Having lost just about everything I owned in a hurricane, I know that "stuff" can be replaced, but I would never forgive myself if something happened to my dogs because I left a washer, dryer, dishwasher or something like that on and left the house.

 

[North of Mouse]

Everything is turned off when we leave the house. I have left the crockpot on low overnight, but everything else is off when we go to bed. I unplug convection oven/toaster and coffee pot when leaving a few days, but large appliances stay on, of course. I don't even like to leave lamps on, but sometimes will leave the florescent ones on. I'm a "what if" type of person, so instead of worrying, turn off what I can

 

[jennyjinx3]

Ok, I do leave my dryer, washer, or dishwasher on when not at home..but after coming to this thread I am scared ! Maybe I will be re-thinking this.

 

[dakcp2001]

Having lived through the horror of a fire that started in the middle of the night by my clothes dryer, EVERYTHING goes off when I leave the house. Nothing goes in the dryer unless I am within ear shot. And for the record, it was a new dryer and the fire dept suspected it was a defective one.

I have on rare occassions left the crock pot on while running out for a few minutes, but I constantly worry while out and have to hurry home. No way could I leave it all day. I do think crocks are probably safe, but my fear wins the battle every time.

 

[stitchlovestink]

I mostly run our dishwasher at night and do a good bit of my laundry at night. That said, if I happen to run the dishwasher during the day and then for some reason need to run out, I will let the dishwasher finish running while I am gone. However, if I have laundry going during the day and need to run out, I will stop the washer and/or dryer mid cycle and restart it upon my return. DH fixes appliances and states dryer fires are huge hazard. People don't realize how much lint is trapped inside crevices of their dryer....I think ours is probably pretty good since he tends to be pretty 'crazy' about ours.
As far as doing the laundry at night, I figure with a smoke detector right outside the laundry room you're just about as safe as during the day unless you happen to sit and watch your appliances (which I don't). Our laundry room is upstairs on the third floor. It was original smaller fourth bedroom until the built the first addition onto the house. Then they converted it into a full laundry room (which I LOVE) right next to the hall bath! Now the fourth bedroom is much bigger and has a loft over top of it.
BTW, I don't sleep well, so I am almost always awake to hear the dryer buzzer go off anyway. I usually don't fall asleep until between 3 and 4am. I'm doing good if I fall asleep at 2am and I'm not doing laundry THAT late....LoL!

 

[DeltaDiamond001]

Washer, dryer, dishwasher, Crockpot, Keurig coffee maker, and 3 or 4 lamps with cool running, energy saving bulbs. We only unplug appliances when we are gone for more than a few days.