Luckily, there are several simple tests you can perform without professional help to determine if your toilet is losing water. Here are three ways to tell whether or not you’ve got a leak.

Just listen.
Take off your headphones. Turn down the TV. Quiet things down, get close to the toilet and listen. Do you hear any dripping? Or a sound like the water is running? Is there a hissing sound? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you could be dealing with a leak in the toilet’s flushing mechanism.

Try food coloring.
A few drops of food coloring in your toilet tank can help you see where the water is going. Start by removing the lid to the tank and flushing the toilet completely. Once it refills, add about 5 drops of food coloring into the tank. Leave the toilet alone for 20 minutes, and then check the bowl. If you can see the color in the toilet bowl, you might have a leak in your toilet.
Tip: The food coloring won’t stain your toilet. Be sure to add only 5 drops or less to the water in the tank, not the toilet bowl. Consider using a darker color, such as red or blue, so it’s easy to see the change.

Shut down overnight.
To test a toilet for leaks, shut water off to it before you go to bed for the night. Before doing this, look to see at what level the water is; when you wake up in the morning, check the toilet tank to see how much water remains in it. If the tank is empty or the level has significantly reduced from what you observed the night before, the toilet is leaking.

Checking toilets for leaks is a great way to save on your water bill and to prevent unnecessary waste. Try one of these three tests in the bathrooms in your house to make sure there are no toilet leaks.