How hard is the water in Atascosa County, TX?
10.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Atascosa County, TX is 182 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 10.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 38 samples at 12 sites between 1990 and 2017, 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 7.4 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 10.6 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 Atascosa 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 3.1 to 51.8 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Atascosa County was 53.3 mg/L and the hardest 887 mg/L, a 17-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 13.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.4 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 232 lb of salt a year (6 bags of 40 lb, about $42), 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 $142 a year.
Sizing at 10.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 636 | 24,000 | 77 lb |
| 2 | 1,272 | 24,000 | 155 lb |
| 4 | 2,544 | 24,000 | 310 lb |
| 6 | 3,816 | 32,000 | 464 lb |
Atascosa County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Atascosa County is number 132 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 53% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Atascosa County: Karnes County (10.7), Bastrop County (10.5), Brooks County (10.4).