Dripping faucets can cost you

Just how much can a dripping faucet cost you?

When I was growing up, my grandma and grandpa had one of those awesome old deep farm sinks by their back door. It was the place I washed my hands before eating countless times. Their house was an old rickety two-story home that was probably built around 1920, and I am sure the sink and faucet were original to the home. I can see it in my head right now. The old porcelain stained by years of use by my dad and five uncles, the chrome soap dish, the rusty chrome P-trap with tape wrapped around it, and the faucets that would never quite shut off all the way!

Grandpa was known for his frugal ways (he was tighter than tree bark), and there was no way he was going to pay a plumber to come to the house, much less buy a (gasp) new faucet! At the time, I didn’t think much of it. I snugged down the handles as tight as my little hands could, but I don’t think I ever saw that faucet when it wasn’t dripping. Grandpa even filed the faucet seats a couple of times to no avail. Drip, drip, drip!

Now my grandpa was likely the wisest and smartest man I have ever known. However, the fact that he was not spending money on a new faucet was costing him as there was water that he was paying for going right down the drain.

The average faucet drips at a rate of around 10 drips per minute. Estimating that my grandpa and grandma lived in the old two-story house on the corner in Carthage, Missouri for 50 years…. That calculates to 262,800,000 drips!!! Calculating for 15,140 drips per gallon, my frugal grandpa paid for 17,358 gallons of water that did nothing but go down the drain! That’s 13,560 (low flow) toilet flushes, well over 1,000 showers, and enough water to hydrate an adult elephant for almost 3 years!! Phew! Let’s not bring up the fact that he had a leaky bathtub faucet upstairs.

In 2023 water is precious and more expensive than ever. Make sure your faucets are in good repair and not dripping. At Spring River Drain & Sewer, we can either repair your faucet or replace it with a new one. Keeping your water bill as low as possible and not sending your money right down the drain!