How hard is the water in Burnet County, TX?
25 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Burnet County, TX is 428 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 25 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 11 samples at 11 sites between 1990 and 2016, 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 21.7 and 26.4 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 25 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 11.9 to 26.8 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Burnet County was 204 mg/L and the hardest 459 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 26.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 21.7 gpg.
Wells 25 gpg, rivers and lakes 11.9 gpg
11 groundwater samples from 11 wells put the median at 428 mg/L. 26 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 204 mg/L. In Burnet County the wells come out 13.1 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river 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 546 lb of salt a year (14 bags of 40 lb, about $98), 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 $198 a year.
Sizing at 25 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,500 | 24,000 | 183 lb |
| 2 | 3,000 | 24,000 | 365 lb |
| 4 | 6,000 | 48,000 | 730 lb |
| 6 | 9,000 | 64,000 | 1,095 lb |
Burnet County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Burnet County is number 41 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 92% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Burnet County: Kendall County (24.9), Brewster County (24.2), Coleman County (23.8).