City Matters - Take the leaky toilet test

Erin Strate:Well monitoring your home for leaks on a regular basis helps ensure we're all doing our part to conserve water. And believe it or not, one in four toilets is silently leaking and could be wasting your water and even more importantly your money. Amy Ross from the Water Services Department with The City of Calgary joins us. Hi Amy. Amy Ross: Hi. ES: Now Amy just thinking about that I've got four toilets in my house, so chances are one of them maybe isn't doing what it's supposed to do. AR: Right. Exactly. At least one toilet is likely leaking and it's a silent leak so often you don't know. ES: Okay, so we have a very special week coming up here, Fix-a-Leak Week. Tell us a little bit about what you guys at The City of Calgary have planned to help get the word out. AR: Sure. So Fix-a-Leak Week runs Feb. 27 to March 4 and we're going to be out and about at The Home and Garden Show from Feb. 23 to the 26th handing out free leak detection tests, so people can come and visit us. And then the following weekend we're going to be at various Rona's in Calgary promoting Fix-A-Leak Week and having free leak repair workshops at 2 p.m. on March 3. ES: Fix-a-Leak Week. That's kind of a tongue twister, that's hard to say. I keep worrying I'm going to mess it up. Now how tough is it to, first of all, establish that you have a leak and, second of all, fix it I guess. AR: So it's four easy steps to check for leaks in your home. So, first thing you want to do is drop some food colouring like we have down below. So drop some food colouring into your toilet tank and wait about 20 minutes. If that colour appears in your bowl, so have a peek, lift the lid and look inside. If in your bowl the colour appears, then that means that your toilet is leaking. Third step is to repair that leak. So you can visit calgary.ca and type in 'toilet leaks.' There's a repair video, some great information on how you can do it yourself or they can come to one of our repair workshops on March 3, or just hire a plumber. ES: Okay, well I'm lucky because I have a plumber in the family so if one of my toilets is leaking I'm going to get that fixed. AR: And of course the fourth step is save. So by fixing one leaky toilet you can save up to $100 a year. EX: Wow. And that was my question. With that many toilets probably leaking out there people aren't necessarily aware that that money is going down the drain, literally. AR: Absolutely. ES: And it would add up after time. AR: Exactly. Yup. So repairing one leaky toilet can save you $100 a year. You're saving about 28 bathtubs a month for every toilet that you repair. ES: Wow. When you put it like that, that sounds like a lot. AR: It is quite a bit of water and again it's silent so people often don't know. ES: Have no idea. Okay so for someone like me who is not, surprise, surprise, necessarily a very handy person around the house, if I had to do this myself would it be something that I could probably handle? AR: Absolutely. So it's about a five minute repair so usually it's your flapper which is leaking. Which is all these funky looking things down here. So it's usually your flapper that's leaking in your toilet. To replace that part is maybe $10, so it's really an inexpensive, easy fix. And just take your old part with you to the plumbing or home hardware store; they'll be able to help you find the right part to replace it with and it's just as easy as un-clipping and taking the chain off. ES: Perfect Amy, thanks so much for coming in. What's the website again people can go to? AR: calgary.ca. ER: Perfect. Or you can also call 3-1-1. So get out there and fix your flap during Fix-a-Leak Week. We're back with more Shaw TV right after this.