Any time I have heard statistics about how much water the average American uses a daily or some such thing about how much we waste I’ve never had anyway for those numbers to mean anything to me. I know compared to the rest of the world it’s some crazy amount but it’s just a number. There’s no meaning way for me to grasp the problem. Well, up until this past month there wasn’t a way.

This is a picture of the tank of one of the three toilets in my house. I’m lucky to have a place where I have three toilets, even if there’s only me in the house. So, some time ago the downstairs bathroom seemed to continue to run after every flush. It was annoying but didn’t seem to be a big deal. I’d remove the top of the tank and lift the float a little to stop the flow and that seemed to “work.” I knew that I could adjust the two screws on the top of the float valve but I didn’t want to bother. Then the other two bathrooms started acting up. No fun. Then I got a visit from the local water utility saying that they think that there’s a leak because of the change in the reading. Damn. I got out my screwdriver and started messing with the screws to see if I could reset the valves. I got it so that the tank doesn’t fill nearly as much so that the water doesn’t go into the overflow tube. Then I got the bill for the water running in three toilets… over $200. And I can still hear the water slowly flowing. Damn. Water waste is expensive.