DH wants to use pyrolytic oven as kiln...

[Pollaidh]

The DC have made some clay sculptures in virtual art class. The things need baking, I understand. DH thinks we could put oven on (very hot) pyrolytic setting used to clean oven, and bake the sculptures in there.

AIBU to fear we could end up featuring on a future series of 9-1-1?

Yes: This is a bad idea.
No: Chill, it'll be fine.

Surely for an art class with no means of firing they’d have sent you clay that doesn’t need to be fired? We’ve used this many times.

It would have been pretty pointless of your kids' art class to send home the type of clay that needs kiln firing when it's highly unlikely the kids would have kilns at home.

Even if your oven could handle kiln temperatures, I sincerely doubt the surrounding fixtures could. From memory I believe a fire can take over an entire room in less than two minutes.

Bearing in mind that a lit tealight resting directly on a plastic bath is capable of melting it enough to release toxic fumes that would kill you, I wouldn't be fucking around with stuff like this.

If you have a big garden you could try pit firing. Definitely do NOT try and tweak a home oven, especially seeing as you don't know what type of clay it is (you're never going to get anywhere even close to a hot enough temperature to transform it).

Small garden, we live in a historic city centre. Not going to risk a fire in or outside the house given what everyone has said

Now just got to convince DH.

It won't work, it won't get hot enough.

As an aside, when I bought my oven the kitchen consultant was at pains to point out that it wouldn't carbonise anything bigger than a chunk of carrot. He then told me they had a customer complain and try to return an oven as "faulty".

When pressed the customer confessed that he had tried to use the oven to cremate his dead pet budgie.it did not work.

I was thinking about this more, my school had a kiln, are they expecting you to return the stuff to be fired?

It would need drying out for several weeks before being fit to fire or the water content of the clay will boil and make it explode. Are you perhaps meant to take them in to school to fire after lockdown?
Unless it's air dry clay, which will have short fibers in it making it easy to identify.