Nationwide Conservation Program
Shows Home and Business Owners How to Save Money, Drop by Drop
March 11, 2020– Rowland Water District is once again a proud partner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) WaterSense® program for ‘Fix a Leak’ Week (FALW), which will be observed March 16-22, 2020. The District will join the nationwide community conservation effort as it has since 2013. The ‘Fix a Leak’ Week outreach program provides conservation tips and leak detection strategies for customers to help them detect potentially costly water emergencies before they occur.
“Fix a Leak Week is a great opportunity for customers to visit our District office, where we will provide water saving tools, a handy pocket leak guide, and details about our water footprint campaign,” says Tom Coleman, Rowland Water District General Manager. “Each customer that comes in will also receive a fun giveaway, and if they participate in a quick and easy survey, their name will be entered in a drawing for a smart irrigation controller.”
From family-fun runs, to leak detection contests, to WaterSense demonstrations, ‘Fix a Leak’ Week events happen from coast to coast and are geared towards teaching the consumer how to find and fix household leaks. The EPA estimates that more than 1 trillion gallons of water is wasted nationwide each year because of leaks that begin in the home, and average household leaks can account for nearly 10,000 gallons of water wasted every year.
Rowland Water District will also be participating in the national 2020 Fix a Leak Week Twitter Relay on Monday, March 16th at 2:40-3:00 PM (EST). During the relay, agencies from across the country flood twitter with #FixaLeak facts, conservation tips and some healthy competition!
Leaks that go undetected can cause severe damage to property and create costly financial problems for the consumer. Experts offer some common sense tips for customers to more effectively manage their water usage and detect leaks:
• Take a look at your water usage during a colder month. If a family of four exceeds 12,000 gallons per month, there are serious leaks.
• Check your water meter before and after a two-hour period when no water is being used. If the meter changes at all, you probably have a leak.
• Identify toilet leaks by placing a drop of food coloring in the toilet tank. If any color shows up in the bowl after 10 minutes, you have a leak. (Be sure to flush immediately after the experiment to avoid staining the tank.)
• Examine faucet gaskets and pipe fittings for any water on the outside of the pipe to check for surface leaks.
“We like to remind customers that home leaks are often easy to fix, requiring only a few tools and hardware that can save valuable water and money all year long,” adds Coleman. “Fixing easily corrected household water leaks can save homeowners about 10 percent on the average water bill.”
In January, Rowland Water launched an exciting, innovative website focused on providing customers with user-friendly information and resources related to water conservation. Interested consumers can visit https://yourwaterfootprint.org for tools needed to monitor their ‘water footprint’ and most importantly, how to immediately change their water use behaviors.
To learn more about ‘Fix a Leak’ week and everything Rowland Water is doing to help you save water, visit the District’s website at www.rwd.org.
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