My DH and DS will burn down the house - leaving iron on. Please help

[User112]

I am so stressed. DH goes into office 3 days a week and I go 3 days. DS is in Y10. Today was our overlap day, but I’m working from home today unexpectedly.
I came home from school dropoffs and the house smelt like something burning. I realised after 2 mins it could be the iron. Leaving iron on is a big problem in my house. However, they leave it standing, so nothing happened so far. But today, it could have burnt the house down. They left it down, but luckily on a low setting. It burnt the cover.
Im so terrified of this shit and have nightmares about the house burning down. I lost it at DH, things get better for a few days, but he slowly starts being careless about stuff again, it could also be DS. I don’t know today:

Are there any timer plugs I can use to turn off the FUCKKNG iron after 5 fucking minutes?

Seriously fuckimg mad at people but they bloody don’t get it.

Some irons have automatic cut out where it goes off if not moved for a certain length of time. Replace it with one of those.

Get a smart plug attached to it. One that you can control through your phone. Then you can check it wherever you are. You could also set it to automatically switch off at a particular time, after they’ve left home.

My iron cuts out after a few minutes of inactivity. I have forgotten it once or twice and it has worked. Not ideal though.

Mine cuts off after 2 minutes 30 seconds. I agree that you should get a new iron. And make DH pay for that and the new cover.

Get a smart plug and an Alexa (or whatever suits you best)

It's not ideal it has to be you, but you can check if the plug is on using the Alexa app and switch it off if necessary.

You can buy an auto shut off iron.

Get iron with auto turn off

You can get a trip switch installed (see an electrician) which means that if too much power is used or about to be a fire the electricity cuts out but this is a bit drastic to rely on that.

You need to put up a sign or something so they know to switch iron off.

You can buy shirts etc which don't need ironing so maybe say that unless you're there and can see them turn off the iron you'll be buying those shirts etc in the meantime and the iron will stay in a lockable room/cupboard.

Yes get one that cuts out if not being moved. Ours does and we also own a timer plug but tend to use this for chargers

@Hankunamatata

Get iron with auto turn off

Excellent! Which ones have this?

Get rid of the iron and make them go to school/work in creased shirts?
If you hang the shirts to dry they come out pretty good anyway.

Irons with a safety cut out and warning beep are not that expensive. £30 or so.
If they really can't be trusted go and cut the plug off the iron now. Nobody needs flat clothes that badly.

example of auto shut off iron as when i looked lots were for sale at Amazon and Ebay which is not where I'd buy an iron from:-

www.which.co.uk/reviews/steam-irons/john-lewis-steam-iron

My sister really did do this. The fire service report was inconclusive as to the starting point of the fire but the rest of the family were quite certain and had been warning her for years.
It's not an experience I'd wish on anyone, the insurance brokers laid every single item from her home our on her lawn and tried to list them for insurance purposes. Every night neighbours trawled through the mess.Luckily no one was injured but she put neighbours and fire service officials at risk.

ignore first link and use this:-

www.currys.co.uk/appliances/ironing/irons

personally i would remove any irons from the house until such time as they can be used safely (but I hate ironing and don't see the need to do it - not even for shirts)

"Hotel safety steam iron with auto shut-off and vertical steam function" www.bts-uk.com/product/hotel-safety-steam-iron-1600w/

Honestly your home and safety aren't worth it. Are these people actually grown up?

I mean you ARE worth it of course

Just a FYI, my DM was always panicking about this when we were younger - she once made us drive back on our way to a holiday - we'd only driven for 40 minutes - as she thought she'd left the iron on, she hadn't!

We’ve got an iron with a cut off. So if it’s left plugged it stops reheating and cools down. It’s brilliant.

Thanks everyone. I desperately need that auto shutoff iron.
Please can anyone tell me more about smart plugs? Anything with a timer on them? I don’t use Alexa. Should I start using it?

I use a cordless iron when I'm quilting. Normally I wouldn't recommend one for clothes as you have to keep returning it to the base to heat up again so it makes ironing slower. However it would be perfect for preventing fires in your household as it will cool down if left face down on a surface and it will also switch itself off if left on the charging base for more than a couple of minutes. This is the one that I have but I think most brands have the same sort of thing.

My DH kept leaving the iron on so we got a plug with a timer on it. You plug the iron into the timer plug and plug that into the wall socket, IYSWIM. It automatically turns itself off after 30 mins, although I think you can get shorter ones.

Ours looks very much like this: www.amazon.co.uk/Energenie-Minute-Down-Timer-Plug/dp/B003QPCH2A?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Throw the iron away. If they can't be trusted to turn it off they don't get to iron.

Or, if you want to spend bigger bucks for a flashier iron then an Oliso would probably work for you. It's designed to be left face down and it sort of sticks out little legs to make sure it's not touching a surface as soon as you take your hand off the handle.