If you are living with a leaking faucet or toilet in your home, now is the time to take action. Through you may assume that those drips are no big deal, in actuality, that little leak can be a big problem. Showers, faucets, and toilets all have the potential to leak gallons of water! Those gallons add up to hundreds of extra dollars on your utility bills and damage to our planet.

The Leaking Faucet

Leaks in faucets can vary in intensity from a slight drip to a steady stream. The longer you allow a leak to exist, the worse it will get, and the more water you will waste. Even if your faucet drip doesn’t seem that serious, you would be surprised by how much water you are actually loosing. For example, a faucet that leaks 60 drops per minute wastes 150 gallons of water a month! That’s a lot of water and that’s only if your faucet leaks one drop a second. What if you have a faster leak, or multiple faucets with this problem? You could be paying extra every month for a problem that is easily solved. This problem can be taken care of by simply repairing or replacing the faucet. If the faucet is old, your best bet would be to replace it. Nowadays they offer low-flow faucets that can be installed on sinks and shower heads. They help you conserve water and eliminate leaks.

The Toilet

The biggest problem with toilet leaks is that you could have one and not even know about it! Toilet leaks can waste around 300 gallons of water a day if they are not taken care of swiftly. Most leaks are caused by the flush valve system. When this system doesn’t work properly water leaks into the bowl and is wasted. In order to find out if you have this type of leak:

• Place food coloring in the tank and stir it around to disperse the color evenly
• Wait 15 to 20 minutes
• Check the toilet bowl
• If the water in the bowl is colored, you have a leak and now it need to be repaired

There is another type of toilet leak that can often be noticed. Does your toilet sound like there is water constantly running through it? If so, you may have a “running toilet.” This type of toilet leak can waste up to 2 gallons of water a minute!

The Impact

If you have a toilet leak, you might as well start flushing your hard earned money down to toilet with all of the water that you are wasting. A severe toilet leak could be costing you upwards from $500 more every year on your water bills. That’s roughly an extra $40 dollars a month. Put that money back in your wallet and have your toilet or faucet repaired or replaced as soon as possible.

Many people might like to think that water is a resource that will never run out. However, they are wrong. Think of the amount of energy that is spent daily at water treatment plants to clean the water that enters our homes. If everyone replaced their leaky faucets and toilets with low- flow and low- flush options, we could save tens of thousands of gallons of water. When you save water you save energy, and you save the Earth. Take the time to check out the faucets and toilets in your home, and do your part to stop any leaks that may be present in your home today.

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