How hard is the water in Burleigh County, ND?
19.8 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Burleigh County, ND is 340 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 19.8 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 19 samples at 10 sites between 1990 and 2024, 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 14.8 and 26 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 19.8 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 12.3 to 43.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Burleigh County was 210 mg/L and the hardest 745.5 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 26 gpg and the bottom quarter below 14.8 gpg.
Wells 19.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 24.5 gpg
19 groundwater samples from 10 wells put the median at 339.5 mg/L. 577 surface samples from 27 sites put it at 420 mg/L. In Burleigh County the rivers and lakes come out 4.7 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 433 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $78), 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 $178 a year.
Sizing at 19.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,188 | 24,000 | 145 lb |
| 2 | 2,376 | 24,000 | 289 lb |
| 4 | 4,752 | 40,000 | 578 lb |
| 6 | 7,128 | 64,000 | 867 lb |
Burleigh County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Burleigh County is number 26 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 84% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Burleigh County: Bottineau County (19.6), Stutsman County (19), Logan County (18.7).