Beware of the Leaky Pool

Check for leaks in your outdoor pool regularly. If you find any, make sure to repair them right away.

A leak that causes an inch-a-day drop in the water level in a standard underground pool can waste more than 100,000 gallons per year. A pinhole-size leak in a pool plumbing system will lose more than three times this amount. At a rate of one-half cent per gallon of water, you could end up paying more than $1,500 over the course of a year for a pool leak.

It is estimated that 5 percent of the more than 3.5 million underground backyard pools have leaks.

If these leaks were repaired, the annual water savings would total at least 72 billion gallons-enough to fill more than 100,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.