How hard is the water in Bourbon County, KY?
12.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Bourbon County, KY is 210 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 138 samples at 3 sites between 1999 and 2007, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 12.1 and 14.3 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 12.3 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 11.9 to 16.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Bourbon County was 204 mg/L and the hardest 280.5 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 14.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.1 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 268 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $48), 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 $148 a year.
Sizing at 12.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 738 | 24,000 | 90 lb |
| 2 | 1,476 | 24,000 | 180 lb |
| 4 | 2,952 | 24,000 | 359 lb |
| 6 | 4,428 | 32,000 | 539 lb |
Bourbon County against the rest of Kentucky
Among the 104 Kentucky counties with data, Bourbon County is number 15 of 104 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 59% of counties.
Softest in Kentucky: Letcher County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 32.9 gpg. Closest to Bourbon County: Washington County (12.1), Hopkins County (12), Hancock County (12.5).