How hard is the water in Butler County, IA?
14 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Butler County, IA is 240 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 31 samples at 17 sites between 1990 and 2017, 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 12.3 and 15.8 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 14 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 7.1 to 23.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Butler County was 122 mg/L and the hardest 395 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.3 gpg.
Wells 14 gpg, rivers and lakes 17.9 gpg
31 groundwater samples from 17 wells put the median at 240 mg/L. 9 surface samples from 3 sites put it at 306 mg/L. In Butler County the rivers and lakes come out 3.9 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 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 306 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $55), 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 $155 a year.
Sizing at 14 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 840 | 24,000 | 102 lb |
| 2 | 1,680 | 24,000 | 204 lb |
| 4 | 3,360 | 24,000 | 409 lb |
| 6 | 5,040 | 40,000 | 613 lb |
Butler County against the rest of Iowa
Among the 93 Iowa counties with data, Butler County is number 84 of 93 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 66% of counties.
Softest in Iowa: Taylor County at 8.2 gpg. Hardest: Pocahontas County at 45.3 gpg. Closest to Butler County: Montgomery County (14), Lee County (14.1), Chickasaw County (13.7).