How many of you have leaking faucets in your home? A large proportion of you will need to stop and think about this. You haven’t really considered this issue, but now that you stop and listen, you can hear your faucets dripping away.
The annoying thing about this issue is that it feels so minor. You see a faucet dripping a tiny bit of water every couple of seconds and learn to ignore it. It gets cast to the back of your mind, so you don’t ever deal with it. What’s the big idea, anyway? All it is is a tiny droplet of water, there’s no harm in that – it’s not like your house is being flooded!
Well, leaking faucets can cause more damage than you initially expect. As such, it is very important that you become aware of the problem and get it fixed as soon as you can. If you still don’t think this is a big deal, here are some of the things that go wrong when you don’t fix your faucets:
Water bills go through the roof
Have you looked at your recent water bills and wondered why they are so high? Perhaps you’ve had a little go at your kids or partner for leaving the water on when they shower or brush their teeth. Maybe you’ve become more stringent in your water usage. Still, the bill seems to be way higher than you’d expect – especially if you ask your friends/family, and they pay way less for theirs.
This is where your leaking faucet is a massive pain in the backside.
That drip, drip, drip of water might seem insignificant, but it really adds up. One good way to showcase this is to leave a cup under your faucet when you go to bed. In the morning, look at how much water is in that cup. You’ll be pretty shocked at how full it is, and that’s just after one night of sleep. Times that amount by three, and that’s how much water is wasted through the dripping every day.
The longer you leave this issue, the more water you are wasting in your home. As a result, you’re wasting money at the same time. You need to fix a leaking faucet to save money on water bills and avoid ripping a needless hole in your finances.
The environment is being damaged
As homeowners, we should always be conscious of how our properties impact the environment. Ideally, we want minimal carbon emissions to be created through our homes. Your initial instinct is to focus on reducing your energy consumption. So, you keep your heating on a lower setting, you turn the lights off, and so on.
However, did you know that wasting water is also very bad for the environment? Why? Because water takes a lot of energy to procure. It doesn’t appear out of thin air; companies need to use machinery to get water from different sources, clean it, and pump it through to our homes. So, if we are using water in our homes – but getting no actual use out of it – then all of these processes are happening for no reason. If people only used water when they needed it, we wouldn’t have such high demands on procuring it. Therefore, less energy is used, decreasing the environmental impact.
Again, a leaking faucet might not feel like a big issue. But, think about how much water you waste every single year because of it. You could literally fill bathtubs full of water that drips from the faucet and goes straight down the drain.
In short, you have to fix this problem before you commit to harming the planet!
How can you fix a leaking faucet?
There are many reasons a faucet might be leaking. Some common causes include corrosion, problems with the O-ring, a worn-out washer, or broken plumbing. Naturally, your first port of call is to figure out what is causing your issue. Ironically, you could have multiple leaking faucets in your house, all of which are caused by different things.
In most cases, the best thing to do is to call a plumber and have them look at your faucets. As you can see on this website, a good plumber will evaluate your plumbing fixtures and fix any leaks as soon as possible.
The overall consensus is that leaking faucets are a bigger deal than you initially think. They can burn a hole in your bank balance while making your home a massive contributor to water waste. To make matters worse, if you don’t fix the problem right away, it becomes more and more damaging. So, get on it, remove the dripping noise from your home, and keep water usage as low as can be.