How hard is the water in Albany County, WY?
11.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Albany County, WY is 195 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 11.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 47 samples at 42 sites between 1993 and 2022, 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 7.3 and 13.8 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 11.4 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 Albany 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 1.2 to 101.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Albany County was 20.1 mg/L and the hardest 1,730 mg/L, an 86-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 13.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.3 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 11.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 0.6 gpg
47 groundwater samples from 42 wells put the median at 194.8 mg/L. 3 surface samples from 3 sites put it at 10.3 mg/L. In Albany County the wells come out 10.8 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 249 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $45), 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 $145 a year.
Sizing at 11.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 684 | 24,000 | 83 lb |
| 2 | 1,368 | 24,000 | 166 lb |
| 4 | 2,736 | 24,000 | 333 lb |
| 6 | 4,104 | 32,000 | 499 lb |
Albany County against the rest of Wyoming
Among the 23 Wyoming counties with data, Albany County is number 15 of 23 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 56% of counties.
Softest in Wyoming: Park County at 1.4 gpg. Hardest: Natrona County at 124.4 gpg. Closest to Albany County: Goshen County (11.4), Converse County (11.8), Fremont County (10.4).