I left my oven on and am now at work. Do I need to go home to turn it off?

Erm , do you need to ask? Go home.

I’d head home and turn it off, but I’m a classic worry wart.

Oh gosh…I always get those feelings…did I lock the door…did I turn the oven off…did I turn off the iron…
Are you sure you left it on?

Ok. I’m leaving work and going home to turn it off. Ugh.

We forgot we had the oven on and left for the weekend. We came back and it hadn’t exploded or anything, but since it was an older gas stove, the entire house was filled with gas and it was very dangerous. We opened every window and door and stayed out for a week. We had the fire department check the house before we went back in as well. It was a mess.
So now it’s habit to check the oven before I leave the house, even if it has’t been used for days.

Summary: I’d go home and make sure.

If it’s not a gas stove, you only have to worry about burning the house down, instead of possibly:

1) Burning the house down
2) Asphyxiating yourself on natural gas
3) Exploding all your stuff

In other words, going home is the right decision.

(Also, drunken cooking, really? That only works if you’re still drunk when you eat it…)

If there’s nothing inside to burn, and if it’s not set super-high (over 400 F), then I wouldn’t worry about leaving it on for a few more hours. It’s designed for continuous heat.

You’ll use more energy driving back & forth from work to home than you would save in turning the oven off

<points to the above username>

If the oven were empty, I don’t think it would matter. I do this way too often lol. But since you left something inside…I imagine they could start to burn and then start smoking at the very least and maybe set off the alarm. I’d go home.

If you had an Internet enabled stove you could turn it off via the web. Can you plug a stove into an X10 module?

Great excuse to take the morning off.

Edit—I missed the part about the pizza bites. I’d try to get home or get a neighbor to turn off the oven. Hopefully the pizza will turn into carbon cinders without flames erupting or smoke filling your house.

“I drunkenly attempted to make pizza bites around 2:30am last night.”
You probably never even turned the oven on!

@davidbetterman Good point. If she got up this morning and the place wasn’t filled with smoke from the charcoal pizza bites then there’s a good chance it wasn’t turned on.

The oven will be fine…they are designed to go 24/7. If you didn’t smell the burnt pizzas, to me that means you may have already turned it off. You are probably going to be just fine.

No, the firemen will do that after they put out the fire.

Ok, I’m back at work. All the cats are okay.

@girlofscience Did they turn the oven off for you?

Ok, tell us the story. How did it go? What happen?

Think I would either go home or call the fire service

@ChazMaz: What do you mean how did it go? I left work, drove home, went inside, turned off the oven, threw out the burnt pizza bites that were inside, checked to make sure all the cats were ok, left home, and drove back to work.

Excellent!

I love a good pizza bite story.

I left my oven on for 2 days once. I only realized it was on when I passed by it and felt the heat.There were no ill effects aside of the 4 petrified baked potatoes. That being said it is not a good idea to leave it on and it is good you turned it off.

( I once was distracted by something outside when boiling water. Two hours later a portion of the pot had melted and fused to the stove top. I think I am just lucky)

Glad to know everything’s okay, except for the wasted pizza bites . . .

A piece of advice… when using the oven or stove top and you have to walk away, try to use a timer to alarm you of the fact that you need to check on what’s cooking. Also, if your oven has a working Time Bake feature, use it so that it automatically shuts off at a pre-determined time. This way, the pizza bites would not have turned into charred bites, and may still be paired with another round of brewskies when you get home.

this was all fascinating, lol, great the cats are okay

Na, it’ll be OK! As long as there is nothing in there to catch fire…and even at that, it’ll become oxygen starved pretty quickly.

I would.

That’s good news. If it weren’t for the cats, I would have advised to let it burn down. A house two doors down from me burned to the ground, and now they have a brand new house, and I’m jealous.

If it’s still on at this time, one month later, yes.