Alice Springs, a remote town in Australia, might need a whole lot of new brass fittings after they ran its first ever “Leak Weak” from October 19-24 this year. Over the course of the week, 20 leak checkers found over 700 houses were wasting water and money on leaks they didn’t even know about, according to the Australian NTNews.com.au.
“One in three Alice Springs homes has a leak, with the average being around, 260,000 litres per year, and with around 6000 homes in Alice, this averages out to a staggering 80,000 litres per home,” said Power and Water’s sustainable development manager Mark Wiltshire. “The Leak Week initiative is planned as an annual event to help remind the Alice Springs community of the connection between water leaks, water efficiency and savings on their water bills.”
On average the houses were found to be losing 936 liters, which would cost homeowners about $653 a year. The losses are similar in America where the average home loses 22 gallons, about 14%, of water to leakage every day. Over the course of an entire year the average American household will lose more than 10,000 gallons of water every year to leaks from things like faulty brass fittings and old valves and fittings that may or may not be lead free.
The leak audits in Alice Spring started getting developed in 2013 from the Alice Water Smart project. They performed an audit at that time, which also showed that about one in three houses had a leak of some kind. The executive manager of Power and Water, Lee Griffiths, spoke about the importance of the environmental impact wasted water can have.
“It?s empowering the community to understand their role in managing our water supply for Alice Springs,” Griffiths said. “Leak Week is not about us imposing strict sanctions or water restrictions, it?s about engaging the community so they understand the limited resource we have.” Read more blogs like this. This is a great source for more.