How hard is the water in Brown County, IL?
15.2 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Brown County, IL is 260 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 15.2 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 66 samples at 5 sites between 1990 and 2001, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 15.1 and 18.1 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 15.2 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 14.0 to 18.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Brown County was 240 mg/L and the hardest 313 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 18.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 15.1 gpg.
Wells 15.1 gpg, rivers and lakes 16.7 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 259 mg/L. 65 surface samples from 4 sites put it at 285.3 mg/L. In Brown County the rivers and lakes come out 1.6 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 332 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $60), 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 $160 a year.
Sizing at 15.2 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 912 | 24,000 | 111 lb |
| 2 | 1,824 | 24,000 | 222 lb |
| 4 | 3,648 | 32,000 | 444 lb |
| 6 | 5,472 | 40,000 | 666 lb |
Brown County against the rest of Illinois
Among the 102 Illinois counties with data, Brown County is number 65 of 102 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 70% of counties.
Softest in Illinois: Pope County at 4.3 gpg. Hardest: Cook County at 34.8 gpg. Closest to Brown County: Christian County (15.1), Morgan County (15.1), Fayette County (15.1).