If you had a gushing leak in your home’s plumbing, you’d notice right away, right? Aside from the potential water damage, you’d be thinking about the amount of wasted water and just how much it might cost you on your next water bill.
What if we told you that most of the wasted water isn’t caused by huge emergencies? Would you want to know just how much water might be going to waste in your home right now? We’ve got some fascinating facts for you about just how much water is wasted in American homes and why. We’ll even tell you just how much money that could be costing you. And yes, we do have a great solution to this problem.
Water Usage
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average American uses 82 gallons of water per day. For a family of four, the household would then be consuming 328 gallons every day. That’s almost 120,000 gallons in a year!
Water Bills
One statistic from 2019 suggested that the average American water bill for a four-person household was nearly $73 a month. However, according to the Census Bureau, as of 2021, the average American household contains 3.13 persons. Another study determined that for the average American household, the monthly water bill was $45.44. Even at this lower estimate, that’s nearly $550 per year, but the higher estimate would put it around $875.
Water Waste
The EPA determined that plumbing leaks account for 10,000 gallons of wasted water in the average American household every year. Even worse than that, they say that ten percent of homes have leaks that waste at least 90 gallons of water every day! That’s more water than an entire additional family member would use. These leaks add up to over a trillion wasted gallons of water every year in the US.
Crunching the Numbers
If ten thousand gallons are wasted each year in a household that uses 120,000 gallons a year, that’s the equivalent of an entire month’s water bill lost each year. If you’re unlucky enough to be in the ten percent of households that waste 90 gallons a day, that’s 2,700 gallons per month or more than a quarter of the average household’s water use, potentially adding up to nearly twenty dollars every month just going down the drain.
Sources of Leaks
It’s astonishing just how much water can be lost to a very small leak. A shower dripping just ten times a minute allows 500 gallons a year to be lost down the drain for no reason. If your toilet won’t stop running, it might be going through two gallons of water every minute! Having your fixtures tightened could make a huge difference. And if you’re worried that water is being lost in other ways, our team can use video pipe inspection to check your entire plumbing system for problems, so you can get plumbing leak repair in Haverford, PA and stop wasting water—and money.
Reach out to Murphy’s Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning today to schedule an appointment with our professionals. It’s always “Integrity Before Profit.”
