WaterSense Launches
Fix a Leak Week in Phoenix

• Demonstration Project
• Phoenix Fix a Leak Week Facts
• Related Links

  Fix a Leak Week demonstration

Demonstration Project

EPA officially launched Fix a Leak Week on March 16, 2009, at the home of Debbie and Dennis Jobin, longtime residents of Phoenix, Arizona. One week earlier, on March 9, EPA and its partners the Arizona Department of Water Resources, City of Phoenix, and Ferguson, set up a demonstration project in the Jobin's driveway to show just how much water is lost due to leaky plumbing fixtures in seven days' time.

The display included two toilets, two faucets, and a showerhead, each slowly dripping. Over the course of the week, the fixtures leaked more than 200 gallons of water—enough to meet the Jobin's daily drinking water needs for a whole year!

New WaterSense labeled toilet in the Jobin's home

To help prevent future leaks in the Jobin's house, the City of Phoenix replaced old fixtures with new WaterSense labeled toilets and faucets. These new high-efficiency fixtures will save them water and money in the future. The fixtures were generously donated by Ferguson, a WaterSense partner. In addition, EPA donated the water collected in the cistern to a company that will use it to irrigate local businesses and schools.

In 2008, the Arizona Department of Water Resources won the WaterSense State Challenge, which challenged state governments to recruit utilities to join WaterSense. Arizona had impressive results by nearly quadrupling its original number of WaterSense utility partners. With numerous government and utility partners in the area, Phoenix was an ideal community to launch Fix a Leak Week.

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Phoenix Fix a Leak Week Facts

• If every home in Phoenix replaced its existing toilets with WaterSense labeled models, it would save the city more than 5 billion gallons of water annually and save residents more than $30 million in water bills. That's enough water to supply nearly 60,000 homes—12 percent of Phoenix's population—for a year.

• If one out of every two households in Phoenix retrofitted its faucets with WaterSense labeled faucets or faucet aerators, it could save residents more than 140 million gallons of water and nearly $1 million in water bills annually. Additionally, WaterSense labeled faucets could also save the region from consuming about 16 million kilowatt hoursof electricity and 50 million cubic feet of natural gas per year, saving residents another $2 million on energy bills.

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Related Links

• Faulty Plumbing Could Cost You Thousands of Gallons Per Year
• City of Phoenix Fix a Leak Week Web Site
• EPA Launches “Fix a Leak Week” to Encourage Water Efficiency
• Arizona Water Facts

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