by Keith Bancroft
March 14 – 20, 2011, marks the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s WaterSense program’s third annual “Fix a Leak Week,” a time to remind everyone to check household fixtures and irrigation systems for leaks.
Think leaks don’t happen in your home? Think again. Between 2008-2010, MMWD Conservation staff visited over 3,700 homes and found leaks in 40 percent of them. This amounted to over 1,500 individual leaks! Extrapolating out to all residences served by MMWD, this would mean there are over 22,100 leaks are out there right now, wasting water and costing you (or about 40 percent of you) money.
But you don’t need to invite a friendly, courteous, knowledgeable MMWD Conservation Specialist to your home in order to find those unscrupulous leaks. You just need a little self motivation, the ability to read (which, by getting this far, you’ve sufficiently demonstrated), an old-school tweed detective’s cap, and a buddy named Watson. Okay, you can skip the last two items, but you will be doing some detective work.
About now, you’re probably asking yourself, “Golly, how can I be a leak detective?” Funny you should ask, because we have just the thing for you—our “How to be a Leak Detective!” brochure. It will help you identify the usual suspects and show you a few tricks to gets the goods on the bad guys.
And if you decide you would like the sleuthing assistance of an MMWD Conservation Specialist, give us a call at 945-1523 to schedule your free home water survey.
For more information on what you can do to save water, please visit the WaterSense web site. Launched in 2006, WaterSense is an EPA-sponsored partnership program that seeks to protect the future of our nation’s water supply by promoting water efficiency and enhancing the market for water-efficient products, programs and practices.
Are there any statistics available regarding where the leaks were most often found? For example, toilets, faucet drips, etc.
While you’re inspecting your washer lines, and hot water connections and whatnot for leaks, maybe it is time to take a good look at that washing machine. It might be an old faithful friend, but that 15 year old top loading washer uses a LOT of water when compared to the newer front loaders. Potable water is one of the worlds scarsest resources and we owe it to our planet to do what we can to help conserve it. Check out these LG washer reviews for some information about the new high tech and efficient offerings from a well respected manufacturer like LG.
Jim,
The breakdown of the data above is 17% of homes visited had toilet leaks and 24% had leaks in the irrigation system (which included broken heads, etc.). Toilet leaks are far and away the most common source of indoor water leaks, and can result in a huge amount of water loss. However, an irrigation leak (or just an improperly scheduled system) can easily quadruple a household’s water use. So, if your water bill seems unusually high at any point, first check your toilets, then head outside and manually run through all the stations on your irrigation system. You’ll likely find the culprit hiding in one of these two areas.