Does your water bill or meter register show a continuous or intermittent leak?
An intermittent leak means that water was used during at least 50 of the 96 15-minute intervals during the previous 24-hour period.
A continuous leak means that water was used during all 96 15-minute intervals during the previous 24-hour period.
Checking and Fixing Common Leaks in Your Home
Inside the home, the two most common sources of leaks are found in toilets and taps, although there may be sources of leaks found in the exterior plumbing or underground irrigation systems. Locating and fixing leaks will conserve water and save money.
Taps
A leak of one drip per second wastes 10,000 litres per year of drinking water. Fixing these leaks could save you $18.20 per year.
Twice a year check all taps for leaks (including those in the laundry room).
Drips may occur if washers, O-rings, seals, valve seats, springs or balls inside the taps are dirty or worn.
Toilets
A toilet that continues to “run” after flushing can easily waste 20-40 litres of drinking water per hour or 175,000 – 350,000 litres of drinking water per year!
Fixing a toilet leak could save you $373.25 – $770.50 per year.
Causes of toilet leaks:
The float needs adjusting or replacing – the float-on-fill valve could be set too high resulting in water draining down the overflow tube.
A faulty fill valve continues to allow water to enter the tank.
The flapper needs adjusting, cleaning or replacing.
How to test for toilet leaks:
Drop a dye tablet in the toilet tank and wait 15 to 30 minutes. If dye color shows up in the toilet bowl without flushing, you know that you have a leak. City Hall provides free dye tablets to test your toilet, if you suspect that you have a leak.
Getting to Know Your Water Meter
Monitoring your water meter is a great way to track your water consumption and see how fixing leaks or changing habits can help conserve water and save money.
Did you know that the display register on your water meter can show you valuable information about your water consumption? Here’s how to activate your meter’s display register and use it to conserve water and save money!
Wave a flashlight beam over the “flashlight” icon (located on the register) to turn the display register on. You will see a digital set of numbers once it is activated.
Take a reading at a set time of the day.
Take a second reading at the same time the next day.
The difference between the two readings is your daily water consumption.
The 9 digit LCD displays your meter reading in cubic meters with the last four digits of the reading being decimal points.
For example, a reading of ‘000263987’ on the display represents 26.3987 cubic meters. 1 cubic meter =1,000 litres or 220 imperial gallons.
How to Save Water
Just follow the 3 R’s to save water (click to expand):
Reduce
Reducing your water use is as simple as turning off the tap while brushing your teeth, taking shorter showers, or operating dishwashers and washing machines with full loads.
DON’T leave the tap running when you’re brushing your teeth.
DO use a bucket and a hose with a shut-off nozzle to wash your car. This can save about 300 litres of water.
DON’T use the toilet as a wastebasket or flush it unnecessarily.
DO take short showers – five minutes or less should do.
DON’T water your lawn in the hot sun or on a windy day. Remember to always water in accordance with the City’s watering restrictions!
DO keep a bottle or decanter of drinking water in the refrigerator rather than running your tap to get cold water when you want a drink.
DON’T mow your lawn until your grass has reached a height of 2.25 inches.
Repair
Fix leaks as soon as you find them. Leaky fixtures can be costly to both you and the environment over the long-term. Drop by City Hall to pick up free dye tablets to test whether your toilet has a leak!
Leaks can be costly. A leak of only one drop per second wastes about 10,000 litres of water per year.
Leaking faucets are often caused by a worn out washer that costs pennies to replace. Most hardware stores will have faucet repair kits with illustrations showing how to replace a washer.
A toilet that continues to run after flushing can waste up to 200,000 litres of water in a single year! To find out if your toilet is leaking, drop by City Hall to pick up free dye tablets. Drop the tablets in the tank at the back of your toilet. Wait a few minutes. If the dye shows up in the bowl, there’s a leak.
Toilet leaks are often due to a flush valve or flapper valve that isn’t sitting properly in the valve seat, bent or misaligned flush valve lift wires, or a corroded valve seat. All of these can be fixed easily and inexpensively.
Retrofit
Install faucet aerators, replace an old showerhead with a low-flow model, or replace an old toilet with an ultra-low flush model. Water used in the bathroom can be reduced by up to 50%.
Toilets – You can install a water-saving device inside the tank or, if the toilet is more than fifteen years old – which means it probably uses about 18 litres of water or more per flush – you can replace it with an ultra-low-volume toilet.
Showers and Faucets – Conventional showerheads have flow rates up to 15 to 20 litres per minute. A properly designed low-flow showerhead can reduce that flow by half and still provide proper shower performance. Conventional faucets have an average flow rate of 13.5 litres of water per minute. Low-flow aerators will reduce this flow. In the bathroom, a flow rate of about 6 litres per minute should be sufficient, and in the kitchen a flow rate of 6-9 litres per minute is sufficient.
Lawns – Sprinklers should be suited to the size and shape of the lawn to avoid watering driveways and sidewalks. Sprinklers that lay water down in a flat pattern are better than oscillating sprinklers which lose as much as 50% of what they disperse through evaporation. If you have underground irrigation, this can often be a source of leaks.
