Here is an update on my iron fire issue. Tossed the iron in the trash so its on its way to the dump never to be heard of again. I got my Chi iron in the mail yesterday and after allowing it to warm up to room temp as its very cold outside right now, I turned it on to test it out. It has 3 options for the auto-shutoff.......60 seconds for sitting down or laying on its side........30 minutes if it is sitting up. But I find it will start to beep if you're holding it down over some fabric as I was. I haven't tested out the steam option yet so thoughts are still out for this brand of iron. It is nice and lightweight though, snazzy looking too, easy to change the temp and has a nice pointed front end to get those corners. Will continue to test this iron out this week and then make my decision on whether I made a good choice.

It is not only vintage homes that can have electrical problems. Our house is less than 15 years old. Twice during night time thunderstorms my husband's electric coffee grinder (which was plugged in) turned on by itself and spewed coffee beans all over the kitchen. It took it happening twice before we unplugged it when not in use. Ha!

Also, when we were having an electrical inspector check our home before purchase, we found out that the power had been turned off at the meter for the vacancy. Before we realized it, the inspector was finding appliances that grossly underperformed. For instance, the burners warmed slightly when turned on. Some lights didn't work and others caused just a dim light. This all happened with the current to the house turned OFF.

Electricity is not something to second guess!

I'm always reading about how though the equipment is turned off its still using power. I guess you just taught us a thing or two. If these items are still using power with the power turned off on the house, can you imagine how much power is being using when the power is turned on in the house? WOW!!!!!

My sister's house she bought last year has a "low voltage" system whatever that means. I've been told this is mostly a commercial system but I may be incorrect on that note. Anyway, she has this wall of electrical boxes down in her basement but she was still on a fuse box. For insurance purposes she had to change over to a breaker box but only 2 electricians in her little town knew how to work on these systems. She has a little panel box for each floor with little red lights that let you know if you've left a light on so instead of having to go upstairs or downstairs you can turn the power off from this little panel. Its only about 3 x 3 so not huge. She had LED overhead work lights installed in her basement and she leaves these lights on all the time. Plus she's changing out all her lightbulbs to LED where ever she can. Her power bills is less than mine by a longshot. So there must be something to these LED lightbulbs. As my overhead lights go belly up I'm changing them out to LED too. They're expensive at first but if they help with the power bill I'm all for it.

Remember when the curly Q lightbulbs were the big fad? Well now they're saying they're dangerous and not to use them. I don't think you can even find them on the market anymore. My mother used to buy them by the case load so when she moved to my sister's house she left them behind. I got rid of half of them but only have them in my outside lights till I run out. Just something to think about.

I have had experience with electrical problems -- my dishwasher -- it refused to turn off, and it became quite warm by the next morning -- so I don't run the dishwasher just before going to bed -- also I don't leave the dryer running either just before going to bed or start the dryer and leave to do some errand -- having experienced the loss of our home and almost all our clothes when I was about 9 or 10 --I still haven't forgotten that. There are cords available with inline switches to turn off the power -- to your iron or any other appliance.

Thank God you were at home and right on the spot, so to speak, to take action so that you weren't burned, nor was your home.