5 ways to prevent wasted water from draining your wallet

For the first week, it was just irritating. There was a fast drip — a steady dribble really — from one of the showerheads at my gym. I mentioned it to the guy at the front desk on my way out that first morning.

"Yes, they've called the plumber," he replied with a thumbs up.

When it was still dribbling away the following week, I mentioned it again.

"They've ordered the part," I was told.

That was the answer over the following five or six weeks during which I was imagining a swimming pool worth of water pouring from the faulty spout. Worse, it was hot water, probably heated by burning some fossil fuel.

The wastefulness seemed ridiculous and I couldn't help pointing that out to my friend at the desk… a few times.

He began to greet me with a slightly-panicky smile and a preemptive "still waiting for the part" comment whenever I approached the desk.

It's easy to take water for granted in a province in which it falls so plentifully from the sky, where you're never more than a quick trip away from an ocean, lake or river.

But water is expensive and in some parts of the world, it's a rare commodity — and becoming even scarcer.

Those pesky drips can cost plenty.

Show me the money

Consider this: according to Sensus Technologies Inc., a supplier of water flow measurement and metre-reading equipment, a steady drip with a diameter of a quarter of an inch (just over six millimetres) will add up to almost 4.5 million litres of water over three months.

James Campbell, the communications coordinator at Halifax Water, says at the agency's current rate of .00239 cents per litre, the bill for that drip would be $10,755. Leave that drip trickling away for a year and the cost is $43,020. 

I'm guessing the drip at my gym was at least a quarter of an inch. My quick calculation suggests that for the six-plus weeks it burbled into the drain below, the cost was more than $5,000. That doesn't include the cost of heating all that wasted water.

That bill must have been quite a wake-up call.

Last week, another showerhead began leaking. This time, there was no waiting around for parts. By the next day, a plumber had removed the head and capped the pipe until the part could arrive.

Five tips for saving water in your household

1. Check for leaking toilets which are one of the biggest offenders when it comes to water waste. Put a few drops of food colouring in the tank and wait 15 minutes. If colour appears in the bowl, you have a leak.
2. Check faucets and pipes for leaks. Even a small drip can add up to 280,000 litres in a three-month period.
3. Use a broom, not a hose, to clean driveways and sidewalks.
4. Don't rinse razors, vegetables or washed dishes under running water. Fill a sink for rinsing and dip the items in the sink and remove them.
5. Don't run the tap to cool the water for drinking; keep a container of chilled water in the fridge for cold drinks.