Nobody likes to drip. No one likes to leak. But we still keep doing it. More than 1 trillion gallons of water are wasted in U.S. homes each year from easy-to-fix leaks.
That’s why The City of Greeley is participating in Fix a Leak Week, March 20 through 26, 2017, and we encourage you to join us.
Sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) WaterSense® program, Fix a Leak Week is an opportunity to improve the water efficiency of your home by finding and fixing leaks. In the average home, household leaks waste more than 10,000 gallons of water each year. That’s the amount of water needed to wash 270 loads of laundry!
Here’s how to identify leaks around your home:
- Sign up for a free indoor water audit. Our technicians can come to your house and see if you have a leak, replace old showerheads, and make recommendations for future improvements.
- Read your water meter before and after a two-hour period when no water is being used. You can request a free digital meter from the City of Greeley to help view your real time water use. If the meter changes at all, you probably have a leak.
- Register for WaterSmart and you'll be notified if your use is unusually high, when you have a leak.
- Winter months are the prime time to check water use and see if you may have a leak. A good baseline is to figure 1,000 to 2,000 gallons for each person in the household, your monthly water use is figured in thousand gallons. For example, a family of three using 4,000 gallons in the winter months is pretty average. If that same family had a winter bill with 12,000 gallons, there may be a leak or other unintended use of water.
Here’s how you can address leaks found at home:
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Check for leaks. Look for dripping faucets, showerheads, sprinklers, and other fixtures. Also check for toilets with silent leaks by putting a few drops of food coloring into the tank and seeing if it appears in the bowl before you flush. Don’t forget to check irrigation systems and spigots too.
- Twist and tighten hose and pipe connections.
- To save more water without a noticeable difference in flow in your bathroom faucet, twist on a WaterSense labeled faucet aerator.
- Replace the fixture if necessary. Look for WaterSense labeled models, which are independently certified to use 20 percent less water and perform as well as or better than standard models. Rebates on WaterSense labeled toilets are available in Greeley. Greeley offers showerhead exchanges to get you a free WaterSense labled Showerhead.
Get Involved
Grab a wrench or contact your favorite handy person, plumber, or certified irrigation professional to address leaking toilets, faucets, showerheads, and irrigation systems around your home.