If I forget the tea kettle boiling on the stove when I leave for a week’s vacation, what’s the worst that could happen, other than a larger gas bill than normal?
I’ve seen the bottom of an aluminum pot melted clear through by someone who let it boil dry. I suppose it might start a fire, but probably not.
Since you mentioned a large gas bill as a possible consequence, I’ll assume you’re talking about a gas stove.
The flame could go out, allowing your home to fill with gas. Then, an errant spark or flame (say, from a water heater or boiler pilot light) could ignite the accumulated gas. The resulting explosion could level your home, and if you’re really unlucky, several surrounding buildings as well. It would probably take out a number of civilians and their pets as well.
If you had an electric stove, you’d probably melt the kettle. This might short the burner and blow the circuit, shutting down any appliances on the same circuit. If your home is like mine, the stove is on its own circuit, so you probably wouldn’t have lots of spoiled food in the defunct fridge when you got home.
Fire, broken stove, melted/charred/unusable teapot.
Possible fire if combustible materials are close by. Anything in the bottom of the kettle could potentially cause a smoke detector to go off leading to the fire department breaking down your door if someone hears it. Same could happen with nearby materials that start smoking even if they would never ignite. Depends on the smoke detector, most require combustion products to set them off.
The worst?
Your vacation is lousy. You lose your wallet and fail to get laid. You step in dog shit while wearing flip-flops. You miss your flight home and have to spend a ton of extra money for another flight. You return home to find that you burned down a few city blocks, get sent to prison on an arson charge for the rest of your life where you are raped and abused on a daily basis. Slow death from STD’s and other nasty things.
But don’t ask me. I don’t have much of an imagination.
Yeah, this is what I was worried about.
It was a tossup between zombie apocalypse or you’re forced to marry Lindsey “SuperCrab” Lohan for me.
Use an electric kettle. Seriously.
They cost like $15 in Walmart.
When you forget to set your alarm clock, you oversleep.
When you oversleep, you have to rush to the airport.
When you have to rush to the airport, you leave your tea kettle boiling on the stove.
When you leave your tea kettle boiling on the stove, you burn down half the block.
When you burn down half the block, they assume you did it on purpose.
And when they assume you did it on purpose, you end up spending 15 years as the cellmate of a really scary biker guy.
Don’t end up spending 15 years as the cellmate of a really scary biker guy.
Switch to Cox Cable!