How hard is the water in Boone County, IN?
18.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Boone County, IN is 318 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 18.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 75 samples at 15 sites between 1992 and 2014, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 17.7 and 19 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 18.6 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 14.6 to 24.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Boone County was 250 mg/L and the hardest 427 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 19 gpg and the bottom quarter below 17.7 gpg.
Wells 24.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 18.3 gpg
3 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 427 mg/L. 72 surface samples from 14 sites put it at 314 mg/L. In Boone County the wells come out 6.6 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 406 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $73), 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 $173 a year.
Sizing at 18.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,116 | 24,000 | 136 lb |
| 2 | 2,232 | 24,000 | 272 lb |
| 4 | 4,464 | 32,000 | 543 lb |
| 6 | 6,696 | 48,000 | 815 lb |
Boone County against the rest of Indiana
Among the 91 Indiana counties with data, Boone County is number 27 of 91 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 80% of counties.
Softest in Indiana: Brown County at 3.8 gpg. Hardest: Warrick County at 40.3 gpg. Closest to Boone County: Grant County (18.5), Hancock County (18.5), Wells County (18.4).