How hard is the water in Cloud County, KS?

18.1 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Cloud County, KS is 310 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 18.1 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 552 samples at 11 sites between 1990 and 2016, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 16.8 and 21.3 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 18.1 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 6.1 to 24.5 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Cloud County was 105 mg/L and the hardest 420 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 21.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 16.8 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 396 lb of salt a year (10 bags of 40 lb, about $71), 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 $171 a year.

Sizing at 18.1 gpg

Cloud County against the rest of Kansas

Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Cloud County is number 40 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 79% of counties.

Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Cloud County: Saline County (18.1), Haskell County (18.2), Hodgeman County (17.8).