7 On Your Side: How to detect home water leaks
DANVILLE, Calif. (KGO) -- Unsuspecting homeowners are wasting hundreds of dollars each year on water leaking in their toilets and other places in their homes. 7 On Your Side gathered these tips on how to detect those leaks before your savings and precious water goes down the drain.
David Wallenstein of East Bay MUD and Ram Vepa are on a mission. They want to figure out why Vepa's water bill is so high. Suspicion is mounting that the Danville resident has a water leak.
"I didn't know I had a leak. Dave sent me an email saying he suspected that there was a leak," Vepa said.
The suspicion was based on water use patterns highlighted in a chart. Vepa is one of 4,000 homeowners in the Danville area participating in an East Bay MUD experiment with the WaterSmart Home survey kit. A radio device relays water use information back to East Bay MUD. In this case, the charts show Vepa is using water 24 hours a day even when everyone's asleep.
"It's important. I just don't want to waste water," Vepa said.
"The system can also be set up to allow customers to get an email notification if they have a leak. And they can also set up a water budget for themselves, if that water usage ever goes above a certain amount in a day -- let's say they're out of town and a pipe breaks -- it'll send them an email," Wallenstein said.
Wallenstein paid Vepa a personal visit to investigate. He's a civil engineer, but you might also want to call him a water detective. He later checked the meter after Vepa shut off the water to the house.
"As we look at his water meter, we can see a little triangle in the circle, a white triangle that's slowly turning," Wallenstein said.
That triangle should not be turning when the water has been turned off. Wallenstein knows there's a leak. But where? Suspect number one is the garden irrigation system.
"I'll look for the lowest spot in the garden to see if there's water coming out of it," Wallenstein said.
A puddle is more evidence that Vepa has a water leak. There are valves are supposed to open and close when you water your garden. When they get old, they can stay open, causing water to run all day.
Next, we go inside the home to suspect number two -- the toilet. Wallenstein drops a blue dye tablet into the toilet tank. It only took a minute for the blue water in the tank to leak into the toilet bowl.
"Water is leaking from the tank to the bowl even though we haven't flushed," Wallenstein said.
This home inspection is free to all East Bay MUD customers. Most other water districts have similar services. You can also get a free kit to do the inspections yourself.
"And in there, we include dye tabs for your toilets and also step by step instructions for checking your meter," Nelsy Rodriguez from East Bay MUD said.
Vepa is happy he got his inspection. By fixing his leak, he'll save both money and water in this drought.
"This could be many thousands of dollars because it has been going on for a couple of years," Vepa said.
Here is more information about how you can get your leak detection kit and how to detect a water leak.
