The Running Toilet Book: Introduction (LeakBird)

Apr.16, 2009 in Running Toilets

Toilets run.

Dana Haasz
Conservation Administrator, SFPUC

If you are a property manager, a landlord, or a water manager, or if you would like to be, this e-book is written for you.

We at LeakBird have done hundreds of hours of research over the past two years and would like to share with you what we have learned.

This e-book illustrates a conviction we’ve held after interviewing dozens of property managers and water managers in the United States.

It’s a conviction that the toilet is the biggest silent water waste and cash flow culprit from an end-user standpoint in urban buildings across the nation.

And we’re coming to see that the problem isn’t that water managers and property managers don’t acknowledge it; the problem is that they’re not doing anything about it.

As a result, their cash flow and water management end up out of control from month to month and year to year. And with loss of control comes unpredictability, which makes leverage and expansion difficult if not impossible.

We only need look at the numbers.

10 percent of all in-building water consumption (not waste) is due to running or leaking toilets. And 9 out of 10 high water bills are due to running or leaking toilets. 95 percent of all residential units in the United States are not individually metered for water, which means that 95 percent of tenants are not responsible for footing the bill.

This means that 10% of all in-building water usage in cities and towns across the nation, sourced, treated and distributed by water districts and utilities, and paid for by property managers and landlords, literally goes down the drain.

Why is this? And what to do about it?

This e-book will answer these questions.

If you read this e-book and help to make changes in the way your tenants’ or your customers’ use water, you’ll improve your cash flows like nobody’s business but your own! And that’s what we’re in the business of doing most. Saving and hence, making you money!

After all, let’s admit that water conservation is a wonderful secondary benefit, but the bottom line is your bottom line, whether you manage properties or water flows.

This e-book is about seven key ideas, which, if you invest the time to understand them, will connect together like the beads of a necklace that when worn will bring you improved cash flows.

Ignore these ideas, or pretend that they don’t exist, and you will likely remain where thousands of property managers and water managers already are—attempting to manage the unmanageable.

IDEA #1 The Water Myth

There is a myth in the US—let’s call it the Water Myth—which tells us that there is an endless abundance of water. There may be an endless ocean, but we can’t drink it, and we are many years away from being affordably able to with technology. Because water is regulated by a monopoly for the most part, the cost has been kept extremely low for decades. But those days are gone.

IDEA #2 The Super Toilet Myth

There’s another myth I’d like to dispel—let’s call it the Super Toilet Myth—which says that if we replace our decrepit flapper with the golden flapper, our toilet will never run again. This simply isn’t so.

Take chloramine, for example, a chemical which has recently been added in a much higher concentration via water treatment to the California water supply. Chloramine wears down materials in a toilet tank much quicker than its counterpart, treated water without chloramine.

Toilets run. This simple fact must be remembered, no matter if you have the latest, greatest, most tricked out HET (high efficiency toilet) known to man.

IDEA #3 If You Don’t Measure It, It Doesn’t Exist

At the heart of the issue of running toilets is measurability. There’s a principle that says if you don’t measure it, it doesn’t exist. There’s also another principle that states once you begin to measure something, results improve. Now we can all relate to this.

Take going to the gym, for example. Now let’s say that I set a goal of trying to bench-press my body weight. A lofty goal indeed, but attainable. Now the moment I begin keeping track of how much I’m benching every week, I’m always measuring it against my goal, and keeping track of how many pounds shy of my goal I am. Almost immediately, I begin to see not only results, but an improvement in results.

IDEA #4 Systems, Not People

There’s a catch-22 when it comes to running toilets. You can’t depend on people to care about them. You need a system to keep track of them, an auditor, a piece of technology. Systems aren’t everything, however. Because you also need someone to be around to respond to the system. Without systems we are lost as property managers and water managers. This applies to all levels and scales.

If a toilet runs in the bathroom, will anybody hear?

IDEA #5 If You Don’t Pay for It, You Don’t Value It

If we don’t pay our own water bill and 95 percent of us who are tenants don’t, a running toilet means nothing. With a running toilet, there has to be a value attached to the sound and/or the cost of the running water. On one level it’s economical, on another level it’s environmental.

IDEA #6 Pavlov was Right

We all know about Pavlov from Pyschology 101. He rang the bell every time there was a piece of meat in front of the dog, and before long, without even having a piece of meat before the dog, a mere ring of the bell would cause the dog to salivate. It’s the same with a running toilet. There must be an associated experience upon the act of the toilet running. And the soft tinkling sound of the running of the toilet isn’t enough, especially given the fact that the toilet always continues to function, because of the overflow and refill valves.

If the sound of the running toilet doesn’t cause us to think of a high water bill as tenants (which it never does) or elicit us to some proactive response due to an annoyance (which it doesn’t), then we can say with utter conviction that the toilet will continue to run until it stops (if it stops), and we’ll go on with our lives, salivating or not salivating.

IDEA #7 The Solution to the Running Toilet is Not a Zero-Sum Game

This is perhaps the most exciting idea of all, so we won’t talk about it much until later. The solution to the running toilet exists in putting an alarm to it, just like a smoke detector. And we’ve been diligently developing that solution. The way to do it is to have a listening device, much like a stethoscope, inside of the toilet tank, which will set off an alarm when the toilet has been running for, say, ten minutes or so.

And the fact is that not only will property managers win when the chirping toilet causes the annoyed tenant to make a phone call, so will the water manager, that is, the conservation administrator or the local inspector at the local water utility.

Both parties have to pay for the running toilet. And so both parties win when the running toilet has been stopped.

Now that we’ve finished our introduction, let’s revisit a little known problem in modern life–the running toilet! And let’s revisit it again and again.

If you are interested in How You Can Increase Your Cash Flows by $2,500.00 Every Year and Never Pay for High Water Bills Due to Your Tenants’ Running Toilets, sign up for our Free Report here.

Abendigo Reebs is the VP of Business Development for LeakBird Industries LLC in San Francisco, CA. He may be reached at by email at jordan@leakbird.com

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