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The Scale of It

A leak you cannot hear is still running, and EPA has counted what that comes to.

In one paragraph

EPA puts household leaks at nearly a trillion gallons a year nationally, and says around 9 percent of homes waste 50 gallons a day or more. At that rate a single unfixed leak shows up on a bill long before it becomes visible.

Source: US EPA WaterSense, Fix a Leak Week.

UnderSlab is a referral service, not a contractor. We connect homeowners with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands, and work that opens a structural slab is normally permitted — ask to see the permit. We carry out no work and no leak detection, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call.

Nationally

Nearly 1 trillion gallonsWhat EPA estimates household leaks waste across the United States every year.

That figure is easy to read past. The one underneath it is the one that applies to a single house.

Source: US EPA WaterSense, Fix a Leak Week.

Per household

9,300 gallons a yearEPA’s figure for what the average household’s own leaks waste annually.

And the tail is worse than the average: EPA puts nine percent of homes at leaks wasting 50 gallons a day or more. A slab leak is exactly the kind that lands in that nine percent, because nothing about it announces itself.

Why it is worth acting on before it is convenient

Water under a slab does not stay under the slab. It moves along the path of least resistance, which may be the soil your foundation is bearing on, and it does that for as long as the leak runs.

The cost of a slab leak is rarely the water. It is what the water has been doing while nobody knew, and that grows with time in a way the repair itself does not.

The Scale of It

Nationally

Per household

Why it is worth acting on before it is convenient

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