Free tool
A leak is a subscription you never signed up for.
Pick the leak, set the rate from your water bill, and see what it costs per year — in gallons, in dollars, and in backyard pools. Then read the flagged number underneath, because for slab leaks the water is never the expensive part.
A silent flapper leak sits near the bottom of this range. A toilet you can hear running sits at the top — or above it.
Most hidden leaks run for months before a bill or a warm spot on the floor gives them away.
Phoenix-metro combined water and sewer runs about $5.50 per 1,000 gallons. Check your bill for the exact figure.
Water wasted per year
10,950 gal
That is 61% of a backyard pool a year (18,000 gallons).
Direct water cost per year
$60
At $5.50 per 1,000 gallons.
Already down the drain over 6 months
$30
5,472 gallons so far.
The water is not the expensive part.
If this leak is under the slab, the collateral — flooring, drywall, baseboards, remediation — typically runs 10–50x the water cost. Against your $60 a year in water, that is $602 to $3,011 in damage. The bill is the symptom. The floor is the invoice.
The assumptions
- Dripping faucet: about 3,000gallons a year for a steady drip — the EPA's figure for one drip per second.
- Running toilet: 6–60 gallons a day. Bad flappers vary; a toilet that runs audibly and constantly can exceed the top of the range.
- Pinhole supply leak: the leak rate you set, running 1,440 minutes a day, because pressurised lines do not take nights off.
- Costs use the combined water + sewer rate you enter, default $5.50 per 1,000 gallons — typical for Phoenix-metro residential tiers. Sewer charges are often billed on water volume, so a leak raises both.
- The pool comparison uses 18,000 gallons — a typical backyard pool.
- The 10–50x collateral multiple for slab leaks reflects what restoration actually costs once water has been in flooring and drywall for weeks. It is a range, not a quote.
Suspect a leak but can't see one? That is exactly what electronic leak detection is for. If the meter spins with everything off and the floor is warm in one spot, read about slab leak repair before the collateral multiple kicks in.
How to read this number
The annual dollar figure will look small. That is the trap. A running toilet at thirty gallons a day costs about sixty dollars a year at Phoenix rates — cheap enough to ignore, which is exactly why people do, for years. The gallons figure is the honest one: eleven thousand gallons is most of a swimming pool, poured into the sewer for nothing.
The number that should move you is the flagged one. A pinhole leak in a supply line under the slab does not just waste water. It soaks flooring, wicks up drywall, and feeds mold, and that restoration bill typically runs ten to fifty times the water cost. A leak wasting $300 a year in water can be doing $3,000 to $15,000 in damage while it does it. The water bill is the symptom. The floor is the invoice.
One free diagnostic before you spend anything: turn off every fixture, then watch your water meter for ten minutes. If it moves, something is running, and the only question left is where. Finding it without cutting concrete is a solved problem — that is what electronic leak detection does.
Stop paying for water you never used.
Electronic leak detection finds it without exploratory demolition. Flat price quoted before we start, and the finding fee comes off the repair.
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