How hard is the water in Colfax County, NM?
12.8 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Colfax County, NM is 219 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.8 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 398 samples at 77 sites between 1990 and 2018, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 8 and 36.4 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 12.8 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. Because Colfax County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 1.9 to 276.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Colfax County was 32.6 mg/L and the hardest 4,730 mg/L, a 145-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 36.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 8 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 191.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 11.7 gpg
6 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 3280 mg/L. 387 surface samples from 72 sites put it at 200 mg/L. In Colfax County the wells come out 179.9 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 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 279 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $50), 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 $150 a year.
Sizing at 12.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 768 | 24,000 | 93 lb |
| 2 | 1,536 | 24,000 | 187 lb |
| 4 | 3,072 | 24,000 | 374 lb |
| 6 | 4,608 | 40,000 | 561 lb |
Colfax County against the rest of New Mexico
Among the 33 New Mexico counties with data, Colfax County is number 20 of 33 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 61% of counties.
Softest in New Mexico: Rio Arriba County at 2.3 gpg. Hardest: Chaves County at 116.2 gpg. Closest to Colfax County: Torrance County (12.8), Mora County (13.9), Roosevelt County (14).