How hard is the water in Brazoria County, TX?
8.6 grains per gallon
A softener is worth it here.
The median hardness measured in Brazoria County, TX is 147 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 8.6 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 20 samples at 20 sites between 1999 and 2012, 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 6.1 and 10.7 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 8.6 gpg a softener is worth getting, mainly to protect the water heater and cut soap use. Get at least two quotes, ask each installer what grain capacity they are fitting, and check it against the sizing table below. Because Brazoria 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 2.9 to 22.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Brazoria County was 49.1 mg/L and the hardest 385 mg/L, an 8-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 10.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 6.1 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 8.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 281.3 gpg
20 groundwater samples from 20 wells put the median at 147 mg/L. 8 surface samples from 3 sites put it at 4815 mg/L. In Brazoria County the rivers and lakes come out 272.7 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 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 188 lb of salt a year (5 bags of 40 lb, about $34), 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 $134 a year.
Sizing at 8.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 516 | 24,000 | 63 lb |
| 2 | 1,032 | 24,000 | 126 lb |
| 4 | 2,064 | 24,000 | 251 lb |
| 6 | 3,096 | 24,000 | 377 lb |
Brazoria County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Brazoria County is number 145 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 45% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Brazoria County: El Paso County (8.6), Fort Bend County (8.5), Borden County (8.4).