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Drew Mathers of ConserVision talks about his findings during a water audit with homeowner, Mary-hill Gleason and her daughter, Laura Lorman, in Sunnyvale, Calif. on Friday, May 23, 2014. (Gary Reyes/Bay Area News Group)

Drew Mathers doesn't carry a badge or a gun, but he's still a detective -- one who spends his days snooping through the bathrooms and backyards of Silicon Valley.

He's not looking for hidden weapons or suitcases stuffed with drug money. He's on the hunt for water waste.

Mathers and other water auditors will come to your home free of charge, thanks to programs offered by most Bay Area water districts -- all of which are trying to save every drop during one of the worst droughts to strike California in decades. The districts now are scrambling to meet demand as the number of calls for water-saving help soars.

A recent afternoon found Mathers at work, switching the toilet flappers at Mary-hill Gleason's Eichler home in Sunnyvale. Mathers works for ConserVision, an Orange County-based company that the Santa Clara Valley Water District has hired to conduct its "water-wise house calls."

Gleason, who turned 98 on the Fourth of July, wasn't trailing Mathers like most homeowners do. She had given him the go-ahead to do pretty much anything to shave some waste from her 470-gallon daily water usage.

"I'm outliving my resources," said Gleason, a retired Lockheed manager whose recent bimonthly water bill topped $150.


The Arizona native said energy conservation has always been one of her core values. She yanked out her lawn during the drought of the late 1970s. When the current drought struck, she told her daughter to buy her a bucket to capture not-yet-warm shower water, which she now uses to water her lush gardens.

Mathers began his sleuthing at the curb, where Gleason's water meter measures the amount of water entering the home's pipes. Even though everything in Gleason's house was shut off, the dial was still spinning, a clear sign that there was a leak.

Mather immediately headed to Gleason's two bathrooms to check out the primary culprits: toilets. Indeed, one of Gleason's toilets was leaking, audibly circulating water. Mathers carries extra flaps in his bag of water-saving tricks, so he quickly installed a new one.

Voila! Leak vanquished.

Mathers then pulled out one of his lowest-tech tools: a plastic bag. He wrapped the bag around the shower head, then turned on the flow. The bag holds precisely two gallons, the amount of water the most efficient shower heads expel in one minute. Gleason's shower passed the test.

He then headed to her garage to scrutinize the control panels for Gleason's irrigation system. Her shaded yard was being doused three times a week for 15 minutes, too much for many of her plants, Mathers said. He knocked it down about five minutes, leaving enough for the plants but stopping the puddling.

Mathers returned inside, where Gleason was waiting, chatting with her daughter, Laura Lorman. He reported to Gleason that he had just saved her 25 to 50 gallons a day.

Ensconced in her plush chair, Gleason beamed, delighted with the outcome.

"It all adds up," Lorman said.

Across the bay in Blackhawk, retired middle-school teacher Martha Slavin wasn't even seeking a water audit when she called the East Bay Municipal Utility District.

But Slavin is one of nearly 4,000 East Bay customers enrolled in the district's program that allows customers to view their real-time water use on a computer screen. So when she was having trouble logging in, the district connected her with engineer David Wallenstein, who works in the program. He quickly spotted a potential leak in her records, ultimately determining that it was wasting nearly 50 gallons a day -- and growing.

Wallenstein scheduled a water audit. And on a recent Wednesday, before the sun had cleared the nearby hills, he arrived at Slavin's home in the tony community, eager to pinpoint the problem.

By the time Wallenstein left about an hour later, he had slashed Slavin's water use by as much as 100 gallons a day, simply by replacing toilet valves and tweaking the timing of the landscape watering with the help of Slavin's gardener.

"This has been helpful," Slavin said, who like many longtime homeowners had thought she'd already done most everything she could to save water -- short of radical changes such as replacing her lawn or installing a graywater irrigation system.

EBMUD spokeswoman Abby Figueroa said she often encounters customers who don't know they might be missing some easy water-saving fixes.

One out of every four households has a leak of some sort, usually something as simple as a loose toilet flapper, Figueroa said.


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Check out the water conservation section of your water district's website. Many districts offer free home audits. In addition to pinpointing leaks, the auditors often can recommend appropriate rebates for high-efficiency toilets, washing machines or other devices.
Turn off all the water, then check your water meter, a dial usually located near the curb. If anything is still moving, you probably have a leak.
Loose toilet flappers are the most common source of leaks. To check, place a tablet of colored dye in the tank. Then check to see if the dye migrated into the bowl.
Check your irrigation system timing and sprinkler conditions. Sprinkler heads sometimes are damaged by lawn mowers or clog up with dirt. Experts recommend watering in the early-morning hours. Make sure the sprinklers are aimed at the plants and that they aren't forming puddles.
Add mulch to plantings to prevent evaporation.