Small Household Leaks Waste Thousands of Gallons a Year. Here’s How to Find Them

| Posted on |

Hands fitting PVC pipe on a workbench

A dripping faucet or a running toilet doesn’t look like much. Added up over a year, it is. The U.S. EPA’s WaterSense program has the numbers.

The numbers

  • The average household’s leaks can waste more than 9,300 gallons of water every year.
  • Nationwide, household leaks can waste nearly 1 trillion gallons a year.
  • 9% of homes have leaks that waste 50 gallons or more per day.
  • Fixing easily corrected leaks can save homeowners about 10% on their water bills.

Three quick checks

1. The water meter test. Read your water meter, then don’t use any water for two hours and read it again. If the number changed at all, you probably have a leak.

2. The toilet dye test. Put a few drops of food coloring in the toilet tank. If color shows up in the bowl within 10 minutes, the toilet is leaking.

3. The winter bill check. Look at your water use in the winter months. The EPA says a family of four using more than 12,000 gallons a month may have a serious leak.

Why it matters

Every gallon that leaks away is a gallon you pay for and never use. Each of the checks above takes only a few minutes of your time.

Source: U.S. EPA WaterSense, Fix a Leak Week.