*POLL* Who lights their stove before leaving the house?

All of the above since someone forgot the 24/7 option.

Seriously though, if I did not trust it enough when I'm not here I sure in the heck would not trust it when we are home. Second, if at anytime I don't trust something like a stove it would be in the scrap heap faster than my first cup of coffee. Unless you have one of the few badly designed stoves ( see previous scrap heap comment ) and follow the wisdom of the people here, you should not have to worry about it.
Learn your stove. Burn properly seasoned wood. Make sure your chimney and stove are installed properly. Clean and check your chimney regularly. Don't do something stupid. That is all you should need to do to have a safe and enjoyable burning experience. 99.999% of anyone that has had a safety issue did not follow one of those issues in that short list.

Here is to a happy and safe burning season for everyone.

 

I have said almost the same thing many times to different people: If I didn't trust the stove to run when I was not home because 'something bad could happen', I certainly would not run it when I was sleeping here..... and this is where I sleep most of the time Catching my house on fire would be awful.... catching the house on fire with my family inside would be that much worse.

It is pretty easy to be perfectly safe burning wood but it is like the old saying that fire is a wonderful servant and a terrible master. It is up to each person to 'keep the genie in the bottle' (meaning, keeping the fire safely and entirely in the stove, not the chimney, the living room, etc., etc.). Burning wood is not dangerous IMO but it IS more demanding than, say, using an oil or gas- fired boiler and having service people maintain it. More responsibility on the homeowner and the person(s) burning the wood, maintaining the stove and chimney and it is probably not something everyone is capable of doing or should so.

Brian

 

No animals and NG. I am known to go one or two months on a single match.

 

Thinking along the same lines as blwncrewchief and BDF...if I am going to sleep in the house with a fire going, I'm certainly not going to worry about the fire any other time. And I would not have fire in the house if I was worried about the safety at any time. I am very confident with my stove...think it is a lot safer than electric heat, where I have to worry about someone putting something near a baseboard heater. And over the years have certainly not become less confident. With a Woodstock/ICC combo I don't worry.