How hard is the water in Adair County, IA?
12.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Adair County, IA is 220 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 20 samples at 5 sites between 1991 and 2006, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 7.6 and 13.1 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 12.9 gpg a softener pays its way here. Before you buy, check the quoted unit's grain capacity against the sizing table below, and ask whether it regenerates on demand, which uses less salt than a timer. Call your utility for its own report if you are on city water. Because Adair County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 7.0 to 105.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Adair County was 120 mg/L and the hardest 1,800 mg/L, a 15-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 13.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.6 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 281 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $51), and roughly 2,346 gallons of regeneration water. Installed, most units run $1,000 to $4,500; spread over 15 years with salt, that is about $151 a year.
Sizing at 12.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 774 | 24,000 | 94 lb |
| 2 | 1,548 | 24,000 | 188 lb |
| 4 | 3,096 | 24,000 | 377 lb |
| 6 | 4,644 | 40,000 | 565 lb |
Adair County against the rest of Iowa
Among the 93 Iowa counties with data, Adair County is number 89 of 93 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 61% of counties.
Softest in Iowa: Taylor County at 8.2 gpg. Hardest: Pocahontas County at 45.3 gpg. Closest to Adair County: Decatur County (12.8), Muscatine County (13.3), Page County (13.4).