How to Locate a Toilet Leak for Water Conservation Tips

Part of the Video Series What Is Home Water Conservation: Residential Tips on Video

Viewing videos requires the latest version of Adobe's Flash Player.
Get the latest Flash player.

Find where the toilet is leaking to learn how to conserve water in the home, in this free video series.

Rating:
Views: 3,004
Comments: 0 (comment now)

Favorited: 0 | Add to Favorites

Tags: home maintenance, toilets, water conservation
Bookmark at:

All Videos in the Series, What Is Home Water Conservation: Residential Tips on Video

Member Comments

Video Transcript

How to Locate a Toilet Leak for Water Conservation Tips
Hi! I'm Kathy with the City of Santa Barbara. I am talking to you today for expertvillage.com and for those of you who aren't really mechanically inclined or you just had a new toilet put in or you have a really old one and you just want to find out if you have a leak there. That's one of the biggest water wasters in your house. There is a very simple and easy way to do this. You can either use food coloring or you can use dye tabs that you get from your water billing agency or even at the plumbing store or the home improvement center. What you are going to do is take the top of the back of your toilet tank off. You put in 4 to 5 drops of food coloring or you actually open up the container and you put this in. I am going to put dye tabs in. Any of these are going to take about 15 minutes to dissolve and what we are doing we are changing the water color in the back. If there is any leaks going over the top of the over flow tube or seeping out underneath the flapper, the blue water from the back here will come out here in the bowl at this color. It will be red, it will be blue, it will be green or whatever color of food coloring that you use. We are going to come back in about 15 minutes and see how this worked. All right, it's been 15 minutes and you can see the blue, the stripes going down the back. There is some water leaking in this toilet.

About the Expert

Expert: Cathie Pare' is a Conservation Specialist with the City of Santa Barbara. Alison Jordan has worked for the City of Santa Barbara, Water Resources Division, for the last sixteen years. Read More