Saving water is vital not only for your household expenses, but also to benefit the environment. The average person in Orlando, FL uses approximately 100 gallons of water each day, most of it in showering, bathing, and toilet flushes. So if you have a family of four, that can mean using around 12,000 gallons of water each month. And that might be too much… because leaking plumbing in your home could be secretly stealing from you.
Wait, I have plumbing leaks?
You may. Many leaks that can start in older pipes or at corroded fixtures are hard to detect from inside the house until they start to create visible signs of damage (such as discoloration on the walls and warping in floorboards). Even newer pipes aren’t immune to corrosion damage, since a condition called pitting corrosion affects copper pipes, probably due to chemicals in the freshwater supply. There may be around half a dozen leaks in different areas of your home right now. Small drips… but those drips add up. An average of 14% of residential water is lost to leaks. In the above scenario, those 12,000 gallons of water would be 1,700 gallons too much. You don’t want to pay for an extra 1,700 gallons of water that doesn’t benefit you—and which is probably damaging your house!
Scheduling leak detection
If you want to find out if leaks are affecting your home, you can run a basic test. Turn off all the taps and appliances in your home, and wait for the water heater to refill. Now go to your water meter and write down all the numbers you see on display. Leave the house to run an errand or go to work. When you come back, after at least an hour, read the meter again. Are the readings different? Then you have a leak somewhere.
This is when you should call on professional plumbers. It’s their job to find where the leaks are occurring and how to fix them. You can end up saving a few hundred dollars a year off your water bills. And you’ll prevent any water damage to your house.
Contact Modern Plumbing Industries, Inc. for professional leak detection.