Because you have too few outlets for electric appliances. It’s easier to unplug one than hire an electrician to install additional sockets or circuits.
Exactly. We no longer subscribe to the paper to mitigate that risk. Still have to be careful of neighbors leaving news clippings.
Yes, because due to my very odd kitchen configuration, the best place to plug in the toaster is directly over the sink, which freaks me out.
So, it gets plugged in; it toasts things; it gets unplugged very quickly before something goes horribly wrong with water and electricity. If I had more counter space (or better outlet placement), I would probably leave it plugged in.
Well, this is similar to how my parents’ kitchen fire started. They had little cupboards at the back of their counters with roll-up doors, and one time they left the toaster in just the wrong spot. The door fell down on its own (or perhaps with a cat’s help) and pushed the knob on the toaster. With the door holding the knob down and the top of the cupboard not too far above the toaster, it eventually caught the cupboard on fire.
They woke up to the smoke alarm and managed to put it out before there was too much damage. It still was a couple thousand $ in repairs, and could have been the whole house if they weren’t home.
Yeah, I know, your toaster is in a totally different spot and nothing could ever fall on the knob. But unexpected things happen. Unplug your toaster.
No. My Dad unplugged everything not in use or very soon to be in use (vampires, ya know) but I never got the habit. Besides, these days with all the crap we have, it just isn’t worth unplugging anything unless I need the socket for something else.
(vampires was the old name for “instant on” and “built in clocks” and stuff. From some old campaign about vampires sucking the electricity from your wires and money from your pocket.)
Are you familiar with that esteemed scientist, Dave Barry?
I have a toaster oven; use it more as an oven than a toaster but one needs to turn a knob counter clockwise to engage it. Not something that could be activated accidentally I’d think.
I need the socket free for the blender so it usually only gets plugged in when I need to use it.
The toaster goes in the cabinet along with the can opener and the coffee maker. None of them gets used often enough to keep them out.
Hear, hear!
I recently discovered, not on purpose, that if you leave a bamboo steamer in a dry wok all night, with the gas burner still on underneath it (lowest setting), that also won’t catch fire and burn the house down.
However, I don’t advise this behaviour as a deliberate experiment :o
(one vote for “don’t unplug the toaster” here)
I’m afraid regular plugging and unplugging would wear out the receptacle, plug, or the wires where they flex, which could be as likely a mechanism for starting a fire as something malfunctioning inside the toaster.
No, but I have it on a switched jill. When the toaster is not in use, the plug is switched off.
Toaster oven, not a toaster, but it is unplugged. My mother insists upon it. She lived 200 or so miles away, but she insists upon it.