Where I live a large percentage of residents leave town in October or November and return in April or May. In fact, these “snowbirds” are so numerous that in my neighborhood, which is mostly made up of retirees, by Christmas there are only a few of us left behind holding down the fort.
My house backs up to a canal, and across the canal are houses that also back up to the canal. That means I can fairly easily see into the living rooms of my backyard neighbors and vice versa.
My wife noticed a few nights ago that one of our backyard neighbors had left their gas fireplace on, but there were no lights on in the house. I figured they were still around, were just out for a while, and must have left it on inadvertently.
Much later that same night I noticed there were still no lights on and the fireplace was still going strong. When I awoke the next day it was still dark out and their fireplace was still on. Later that morning, I notice the fireplace was turned off, but it still appeared nobody was home. That afternoon I was taking my dog for a walk and noticed a large package on their front doorstep, and still no sign of anyone being home. That same night, around 8 PM, with no lights on in the house, the fireplace was once again on. While I didn’t think this was necessarily a fire hazard, I couldn’t figure out what was going on.
Did they have the fireplace on a timer so it looked like someone was home at night even though none of their lights were on? Were they using the fireplace to keep the house warm so the pipes wouldn’t freeze? I had no way to contact them to ask the question, not that it’s any of my business.
Neither of those two explanations makes sense to me, although the second one seems more plausible than the first. Have you heard of anyone leaving an unattended gas fireplace on all night for months to keep their house warm, and is that more efficient/cheaper than using their forced-air heating system? Is there any fire danger to the neighborhood in them doing that? It’s the unattended part that makes me nervous.
A friend of mine does have a gas fireplace as part of his home heating system, and it’s controlled by a thermostat. It’s more efficient than the furnace by virtue of (mostly) only heating the living room, their most-used room.
If it’s a glass-fronted fireplace, is there any fire risk? I’m not sure that your concern about fire risk makes much sense, since if such a fireplace were dangerous, it would be of equal concern when the residents were home, and the fire might kill them.
I don’t think it would be less efficient than a gas-fired boiler if you want to keep the house warm. They probably just have it on a thermostat.
I don’t think it’s just on a thermostat since it’s cold throughout the day and night so I would expect it to be going on and off all day and all night. It is only on from 8 PM until 10 AM. Seems to me more like it’s on a timer. BTW, my gas fireplace has a WiFi plug that’s a programmable timer and can also be set to go on and off via a thermostat.
I’m sure the homeowners will be delighted that their concerned neighbors suggested that the gas company should shut off their heating in the middle of winter… just in case.
I don’t understand the notion that it could be dangerous when someone is away from home. Would anyone install a gas fire that you have to watch constantly in order for it to be safe?
Since there shouldn’t be a risk of something overheating and the house bursting into flames I will assume the fireplace is being used to keep the house warm over the winter, and that running it 14 hours a day is apparently enough to accomplish that. I’m going to try and track down the owner so I can contact them and make sure it’s working as they had intended. I was just trying to find out if other people do this, and it sounds like they do.
Besides sun (passive solar house), a propane stove is our primary source of heat. We do have baseboard heaters that we rarely use. It’s got to be -20F before we would even think about the baseboard heaters.
The propane stove is on a thermostat, but not a timer. We turn it down to 65 when we leave for a weekend. We also turn our water off.
To us, besides being nice ambiance, our propane stove is our furnace. So like everyone should do, we turn it down when we are away, but it will cycle on if it gets below what our thermostat is set at.
Our situation is probably different than the OP’s, but very common where I live.
Is there an HOA? They might be able to contact the owners. I had my HOA contact a snowbird neighbor when their drip system sprung a leak while they were away for the summer. They were quite appreciative.
There is an HOA, and I would rather call them than the County Sherriff’s non-emergency number. I don’t think there’s a safety issue, which is what I was most concerned about. I just wanted to see if there is something I should do immediately.
It’s just not normal to report that somebody else’s gas fire is working normally, but you vaguely think it might be dangerous. I could easily imagine that getting scrambled at the gas company into a report of a gas leak.
Read the OP. They are nervous about the situation. I think passing the buck to the gas company will probably bring more peace of mind than conflicting opinions on a message board.
Yeah, well we’ll have to agree to disagree - I think by asking here OP has gained peace of mind that this is a normal mode of operation, and reporting your neighbor’s normally-operating gas fire to the gas company is not sensible.
Totally agree. I occasionally babysit a mentally disabled woman whose entire modern apartment is heated by one gas fireplace and one bedroom baseboard heater. The fireplace has a thermostat and a timer, just like my gas furnace.