How hard is the water in Breathitt County, KY?
20.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Breathitt County, KY is 348 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 20.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 151 samples at 5 sites between 1990 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 11.4 and 28.1 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 20.3 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 9.1 to 36.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Breathitt County was 156 mg/L and the hardest 621 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 28.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.4 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 443 lb of salt a year (12 bags of 40 lb, about $80), 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 $180 a year.
Sizing at 20.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,218 | 24,000 | 148 lb |
| 2 | 2,436 | 24,000 | 296 lb |
| 4 | 4,872 | 40,000 | 593 lb |
| 6 | 7,308 | 64,000 | 889 lb |
Breathitt County against the rest of Kentucky
Among the 104 Kentucky counties with data, Breathitt County is number 5 of 104 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 85% of counties.
Softest in Kentucky: Letcher County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 32.9 gpg. Closest to Breathitt County: Hardin County (20.1), Boone County (20.9), Webster County (15.2).