How hard is the water in Bingham County, ID?
12.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Bingham County, ID is 215 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 398 samples at 101 sites between 1990 and 2019, 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 9.2 and 14.3 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 12.6 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 Bingham 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 4.8 to 42.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Bingham County was 82.1 mg/L and the hardest 726 mg/L, a 9-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 14.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 9.2 gpg.
Wells 12.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 8.6 gpg
398 groundwater samples from 101 wells put the median at 215 mg/L. 102 surface samples from 3 sites put it at 146.5 mg/L. In Bingham County the wells come out 4.0 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 274 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $49), 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 $149 a year.
Sizing at 12.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 756 | 24,000 | 92 lb |
| 2 | 1,512 | 24,000 | 184 lb |
| 4 | 3,024 | 24,000 | 368 lb |
| 6 | 4,536 | 32,000 | 552 lb |
Bingham County against the rest of Idaho
Among the 44 Idaho counties with data, Bingham County is number 13 of 44 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 60% of counties.
Softest in Idaho: Valley County at 1.3 gpg. Hardest: Caribou County at 23 gpg. Closest to Bingham County: Owyhee County (12.8), Bonneville County (13.4), Jerome County (13.6).