How hard is the water in Brown County, IN?

3.8 grains per gallon

Optional: a softener helps, but plenty of homes skip it.

The median hardness measured in Brown County, IN is 65 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 3.8 gpg. That is moderately hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 29 samples at 9 sites between 1992 and 2002, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 3.1 and 5.3 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 3.8 gpg this is your call. Look for white film on glasses and crust on the shower head: if you see little of either, you can live without one. If you do want one, a 24,000-grain unit is enough, so ask for that size rather than a bigger one. Because Brown County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 1.8 to 7.6 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Brown County was 31.1 mg/L and the hardest 130 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 5.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 3.1 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 83 lb of salt a year (3 bags of 40 lb, about $15), 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 $115 a year.

Sizing at 3.8 gpg

Brown County against the rest of Indiana

Among the 91 Indiana counties with data, Brown County is the softest. Across the whole country it is harder than 26% of counties.

Hardest: Warrick County at 40.3 gpg. Closest to Brown County: Perry County (5.7), Floyd County (6.5), Dubois County (7.1).