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WaterSense®Fix a Leak Week - March 16-20, 2009

Release Date: 03/11/2009
Contact Information: Paula Ballentine, (617) 918-1027

Please Note: The EPA WaterSense Logo is attached below

Every Drop Counts

(March 11, 2009) More than 1 trillion gallons of water are wasted in U.S. homes each year from easy-to-fix leaks. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) WaterSense® program, along with the over eighty WaterSense partners from the New England area, encourage homeowners to join us for Fix a Leak Week, March 16 to 20, 2009, an opportunity to improve the water efficiency of homes and irrigation systems by checking for and fixing leaks.

Did you know that leaks waste an average of 11,000 gallons of water per home each year? That’s more than enough water to fill up a backyard swimming pool! Fixing easily corrected household water leaks can save homeowners more than 10 percent on their water bills. Common types of leaks found in the home include leaking toilet flappers, dripping faucets,
and other leaking valves. All are easily correctable, don’t require a major investment, and can be installed by do-it-yourselfers. The vast majority of leaks can be eliminated after retrofitting a household with new WaterSense labeled fixtures and other high-efficiency appliances.

Leak Detection:
* A good method to check for leaks is to examine your winter water usage. It’s likely that a family of four has a serious leak problem if its winter water use exceeds 12,000 gallons per month.
* Check your water meter before and after a two-hour period when no water is being used. If the meter does not read exactly the same, you probably have a leak.
* One way to find out if you have a toilet leak is to place a drop of food coloring in the toilet tank. If the color shows up in the bowl without flushing, you have a leak. Make sure to flush immediately after this experiment to avoid staining the tank.

Faucets and Showerheads:
* A leaky faucet that drips at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year. A home with WaterSense labeled toilets could use that water to flush for six months!
* Leaky faucets can be reduced by checking faucet washers and gaskets for wear and replacing them if necessary. If you are replacing a faucet, look for the WaterSense label.
* A showerhead leaking at 10 drips per minute wastes more than 500 gallons per year. That’s enough water to wash 60 loads of dishes in your dishwasher.
* Most leaky showerheads can be fixed by ensuring a tight connection using pipe tape and a wrench.

Toilets:
* If your toilet is running constantly, you could be wasting 200 gallons of water or more every day.
* If your toilet is leaking, the cause is most often an old, faulty toilet flapper. Over time, this inexpensive rubber part decays, or minerals build up on it. It’s usually best to replace the whole rubber flapper—a relatively easy, inexpensive do-it-yourself project that pays for itself in no time.
* If you do need to replace the entire toilet, look for a WaterSense labeled model. If a family of four replaces its older, inefficient toilets with new WaterSense labeled ones, it could save more than 16,000 gallons per year. Retrofitting the house could save the family approximately $2,000 in water and wastewater bills over the lifetime of the toilets.

Outdoors:
* An irrigation system should be checked each spring before use to make sure it was not damaged by frost or freezing.
* An irrigation system with pressure set at 60 pounds per square inch that has a leak 1/32nd of an inch in diameter (about the thickness of a dime) can waste about 6,300 gallons of water per month.
* To ensure that your in-ground irrigation system is not leaking water, consult with a WaterSense irrigation partner who has passed a certification program focused on water efficiency; visit www.epa.gov/watersense for a complete list of irrigation partners in your area.
* Check your garden hose for leaks at its connection to the spigot. If it leaks while you run your hose, replace the nylon or rubber hose washer and ensure a tight connection to the spigot using pipe tape and a wrench.

Learn More About WaterSense®

WaterSense is a partnership program sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Its mission is to protect the future of our nation’s water supply by promoting and enhancing the market for water-efficient products and services. Currently, there are more than 250 WaterSense labeled toilets, 700 labeled faucets and faucet accessories, and more than 600 certified irrigation partners. WaterSense labeled products must achieve independent, third-party testing and certification to prove they meet EPA’s rigorous criteria for efficiency and performance. For more information, visit www.epa.gov/watersense.

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