Check your Water Meter
Turn off all the water in your home. Shut off all faucets, and make sure the dishwasher, washing machine, and hot water heater are not running. If the meter dial is still spinning, you likely have a leak. If you have a new meter (pictured below) pressing the fingerprint will show you the gallons per minute flowing through the meter. The leak could be anywhere after the meter, or even underground. Remember that all piping after the meter is a homeowner’s responsibility.
Check your Toilets
Toilets can account for up to 30 percent of your water use, so you should check to ensure they’re running properly. To test for leaks, add a few drops of food coloring to your toilet tank and wait 10 minutes. If the color shows up in your bowl, then you have a leak allowing water to flow from the tank to your drain without ever flushing the bowl
Isolate the Leak
Do you have a shut off going into your house? If so, shut it off and re-check the meter. This will tell you if the leak is underground between the house and meter.
Water Flow Rates
A burst pipe can cause a lot of water to spill into a home or building. Here are the average water flow rates based on typical municipal water lines:
- ½-inch pipe: 50 gallons per minute
- ¾-inch pipe: 110 gallons per minute
- 1-inch pipe: 210 gallons per minute
- 2-inch pipe: 850 gallons per minute
- 3-inch pipe: 1,900 gallons per minute
- 4-inch pipe: 3,400 gallons per minute
Based on these average flows, here are some examples of how quickly water loss can occur:
- A 24-foot above-ground round pool, 5 foot deep, contains roughly 16,000 gallons of water. If the typical two-inch pipe for sprinklers breaks – that pool would fill in about 20 minutes.
- If a standard half-inch pipe breaks and no one is home, in just a few hours there can be up to 10,000 gallons of water spilled.
- A refrigerator water line typically flows at ½ to 1 gallon per minute (depending on water pressure). A leak can lose up to 700 – 1,400 gallons of water in 24 hours.
- A single leak in toilet supply line, which flows at 2-3 gallons per minute, can lose up to 3,000-4,000 gallons each day.
- A washing machine hose can leak up to 10-12 gallons per minute, causing the loss of more than 12,000 gallons in 24 hours.
- A typical garden hose flow rate is usually between 9 and 17 gallons per minute.
