How hard is the water in Clark County, KS?

28.6 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Clark County, KS is 490 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 28.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 91 samples at 5 sites between 1990 and 2015, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 15.8 and 36.8 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: medium (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 28.6 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 10.5 to 51.4 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Clark County was 180 mg/L and the hardest 880 mg/L, a 5-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 36.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 15.8 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 625 lb of salt a year (16 bags of 40 lb, about $113), 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 $213 a year.

Sizing at 28.6 gpg

Clark County against the rest of Kansas

Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Clark County is number 15 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 94% of counties.

Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Clark County: Ness County (28.6), Smith County (29.1), Barber County (27.7).