How hard is the water in Bottineau County, ND?
19.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Bottineau County, ND is 335 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 19.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 590 samples at 26 sites between 1990 and 2023, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 18.3 and 20.7 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 19.6 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 4.4 to 95.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Bottineau County was 75.5 mg/L and the hardest 1,635 mg/L, a 22-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 20.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 18.3 gpg.
Wells 16.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 19.8 gpg
11 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 281 mg/L. 579 surface samples from 22 sites put it at 338.3 mg/L. In Bottineau County the rivers and lakes come out 3.4 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 427 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $77), 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 $177 a year.
Sizing at 19.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,176 | 24,000 | 143 lb |
| 2 | 2,352 | 24,000 | 286 lb |
| 4 | 4,704 | 40,000 | 572 lb |
| 6 | 7,056 | 64,000 | 858 lb |
Bottineau County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Bottineau County is number 27 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 83% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Bottineau County: Burleigh County (19.8), Stutsman County (19), Logan County (18.7).