How hard is the water in Blanco County, TX?
63.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Blanco County, TX is 1089 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 63.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 12 samples at 6 sites between 1996 and 2021, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 20.3 and 108.4 gpg. The whole middle of that range gives the same answer, so a test of your own tap is unlikely to change it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 63.6 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.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 15.4 to 139.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Blanco County was 263.5 mg/L and the hardest 2,380 mg/L, a 9-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 108.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 20.3 gpg.
Wells 103.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 15.6 gpg
4 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 1770 mg/L. 8 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 267.3 mg/L. In Blanco County the wells come out 87.8 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, the water is harder than a standard single tank handles in a week, so plan on a larger or twin-tank unit. Expect about 1,389 lb of salt a year (35 bags of 40 lb, about $250), 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 $350 a year.
Sizing at 63.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,816 | 32,000 | 464 lb |
| 2 | 7,632 | 64,000 | 929 lb |
| 4 | 15,264 | twin tank | 1,857 lb |
| 6 | 22,896 | twin tank | 2,786 lb |
Blanco County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Blanco County is number 14 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 98% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Blanco County: Wichita County (63.7), Hudspeth County (61), Coke County (71.9).