Shocking Water Consumption & Running Toilet Leakage Facts: The Average Toilet in San Francisco Wastes $6.83 Per Month or $81.96 Per Year due to Running or Leaking!!! (LeakBird)

Apr.30, 2009 in Running Toilets, Water Bills, Water Rates

In order to calculate how much your toilet wastes in a city like San Francisco, we need to know the water footprint of your entire building. Of course, if you’re a property manager or landlord, you’ll be especially interested in this, as tenants don’t foot the water bills anyhow. I’m going to give facts from the point of view of multiple family dwelling units, aka apartment buildings, as opposed to single family residential unit.

There are two ways to calculate the water footprint of a building:

What we can do is take the average monthly water bill stats for the last two years.
Another method is that we can multiply the number of households by 7, to get the total number of units of water used each month, because according to the SFPUC, the average San Francisco household uses 7 units (5236 gallons) of water per month.

Obviously the first method will be far more accurate, because it won’t be based on averages but the actual hard data of the particular buildings in question.

Once we’ve accounted for the total water footprint of the buildings in question, we then have to figure out what percentage of the total water consumption is due to leaking toilets. According to a 1999 American Water Works Association study called “Residential End Uses of Water”, 13.7 percent of all indoor water usage can be attributed to running toilets or leaky faucets.

According to the Birmingham Water Works, “Water industry statistics show that…90 percent of high water bills are caused by leaky toilets.”

Hence, we can say that 90% of all indoor leaks can be attributed to the toilet. If we know that all indoor leaks make up 13.7 percent of total water consumption, then we can multiply 90% times 13.7 percent to get 12.33 percent. To be conservative, let’s just round it down to 10 percent. Hence, we can say that 10% of all indoor water usage can be attributed to running toilets.

Thus, if we have a building which uses 140 units of water per month, we can safely say, according to rigorous industry studies, that 14 of those units on average were due to running or leaking toilets.

Let’s do an example according to San Francisco new water rates set for July 2, 2009. Let’s say a 20-unit apartment uses 140 units of water per month, which is 7 units per household per month. For water, as property manager I would pay $2.87 for the first three units per of water household or for 60 units total, and $3.82 for the next four units of water per household or for 80 units total.

60 x $2.87 = $172.20

80 x $3.82 = $305.60

Total: $477.80

For sewage, as property manager I pay only 95% of the total. So, I would pay $5.66 for the first three units of water per household or for 60 units total, and $7.45 for the next four units of water per household or for 80 units total. After adding these numbers together, I would multiply them by 95% to get the total

60 x $5.66 = $339.60

80 x $7.45 = $596.00

Total: $935.60 x 95% (.95)

New Total: $888.82

Grand Total: $477.80 + $888.82 = $1366.62

That’s $68.33 per household per month!!! If you get a bi-monthly water bill, it’ll be $136.66. And this doesn’t include other fees and costs, such as meter size and tax!

And we can say that $6.83 per month for every toilet goes down the drain, due to running or leaking toilets! That’s $81.96 per toilet in San Francisco alone wasted per year!!! Or $1639.20 per year total for the 20-unit building!!!

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