You probably already know you have a leaking toilet somewhere in your building. Maybe a resident mentioned it. Maybe you spotted it on a walkthrough. Or maybe you just have a hunch that your water bill is higher than it should be.
Here’s the thing though: most property managers know about the leak. Very few know what it’s actually costing them.
That gap, between knowing a problem exists and understanding its financial impact, is where a lot of money quietly disappears.
So let’s do the math.
It’s easy to write off a leaking toilet as a minor maintenance issue. It doesn’t flood a unit. It doesn’t trigger an insurance claim. It just… runs. Continuously. In the background. Every hour of every day until someone fixes it.
That’s exactly what makes it so expensive.
A slow toilet leak typically runs at around 1 to 3 litres per minute. A moderate one can hit 6 litres per minute or more. And when Connected Sensors ran a water audit at a 30-unit apartment building in Ontario, they found multiple leaking toilets running at a combined rate of over 15 litres per minute, consistently, day over day, for months.
That building went from spending $56,424 per year on water to $16,605 per year after fixing the toilets. That’s a savings of nearly $40,000. For toilets.
Toilets get the most attention, but they’re not the only culprits.
A dripping faucet at 10 drips per minute wastes roughly 2,000 litres per month. A showerhead that doesn’t fully shut off can waste even more. On their own, these fixtures feel manageable. But in a building with dozens or hundreds of units, small leaks stack up fast.
This is why water waste tends to be dramatically underestimated by property managers who are only looking at the total bill. The bill goes up, it gets flagged in a budget review, and then it quietly gets accepted as “just what water costs now.” The leak never gets investigated. The waste never gets quantified. And the money keeps draining out.
This isn’t a criticism. It’s just a reality of how most buildings are set up.
Traditional water meters tell you how much water entered the building. They don’t tell you how much of that water was actually used versus wasted. There’s no alert when a toilet starts running continuously at 2 a.m. There’s no report that shows you where consumption is spiking. You get a bill, and you pay it.
In another multi-residential building monitored by Connected Sensors, the Water Monkey identified that 41% of total water consumption was attributable to leaks. That’s nearly half the water bill going directly to waste. The leak had been happening for years before it was caught.
The property owner is now on track to save an estimated $83,500 per year from fixing a single leak.
You don’t need a full water audit to start getting a handle on this. You just need to run the numbers.
That’s why we built the Connected Sensors Leak Cost Calculator. It’s a simple tool designed specifically for property managers, operators, and building owners who want to put a dollar figure on potential fixture waste before committing to anything more involved.
Plug in your building details: how many toilets, faucets, and showerheads you have, how many might be leaking, and at what rate. The calculator estimates how many litres are being wasted and what that translates to in annual costs, based on real Toronto water rates.
It takes about two minutes. And for a lot of property managers, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen water waste turned into a dollar figure that actually means something.
Once you know what the problem is worth, you can make a real decision about what to do next.
The most common response we hear after someone uses the calculator is some version of: “I had no idea it was that much.”
That’s the point.
Water waste is invisible until you measure it. It hides inside a utility bill that gets approved and forgotten every month. It doesn’t set off alarms. It doesn’t cause visible damage. It just costs you money, steadily and silently, until someone decides to look.
If your building has leaking toilets and you haven’t quantified the cost, you’re making budget decisions without the full picture. And in a market where every dollar of NOI matters, that’s a gap worth closing.
Run the numbers. You might be surprised at what you find.
Whether you are looking for a consultation or just have general questions, we’re here to help you.