Growing up, every time I had a question I had three places where I could look to find the answer. One place was the encyclopedia, the second place was my mother (Momo) and the third place was my father (Chuck). We had two computers in the house that were only used by my parents for work. So when I asked either of my parents a question I never questioned them or found the information elsewhere. This was before they had smart phones and google. Now, when I ask questions I like to see how my parents answers correlate with answers I found online. The other day my brother asked Chuck, “why do you keep the pilot light on for a fire place, doesn’t it cost a lot of money?” Chucks response was, “the cost is very minimal, plus if you turn off the pilot light, spiders will crawl inside the pipes and build webs in the gas lines, which will clog them and potentially cause a fire.” I was taken back by this response because it sounds completely absurd. So I “googled” this information and found this. According to Marsh’s Stoves & Fireplaces, “Spider’s webs are thought to be the second-strongest material on earth, right behind the teeth of an aquatic creature known as a “limpet.” You probably won’t have any limpets fooling around in your fireplace during the summer, but you may very well have spiders. Spiders, for reasons unknown to mankind, like the smell of a compound called mercaptan, which gas companies add to their gas. When you turn off your pilot light, the light’s tubes will maintain a trace level of mercaptan, and that will attract spiders, who will spin webs that can clog the pilot light system. Leaving the gas on keeps this compound moving out of the tubes.” After I read this information I decided to stop googling any of his answers!