How hard is the water in Clay County, NE?

16.4 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Clay County, NE is 280 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 16.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 12 samples at 9 sites between 1992 and 2015, 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 14.5 and 17.9 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 16.4 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 9.8 to 22.9 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Clay County was 167 mg/L and the hardest 391.5 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 17.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 14.5 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 357 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $64), 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 $164 a year.

Sizing at 16.4 gpg

Clay County against the rest of Nebraska

Among the 89 Nebraska counties with data, Clay County is number 34 of 89 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 74% of counties.

Softest in Nebraska: Blaine County at 2.1 gpg. Hardest: Cedar County at 36.5 gpg. Closest to Clay County: Merrick County (16.3), Cass County (16.5), York County (16.2).