How hard is the water in Cortland County, NY?
14.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Cortland County, NY is 246 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 55 samples at 50 sites between 1990 and 2019, 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 11.4 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 14.3 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 2.3 to 43.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Cortland County was 39.9 mg/L and the hardest 736 mg/L, an 18-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.4 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 14.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 8.9 gpg
55 groundwater samples from 50 wells put the median at 245.5 mg/L. 37 surface samples from 13 sites put it at 153 mg/L. In Cortland County the wells come out 5.4 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 313 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $56), 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 $156 a year.
Sizing at 14.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 858 | 24,000 | 104 lb |
| 2 | 1,716 | 24,000 | 209 lb |
| 4 | 3,432 | 32,000 | 418 lb |
| 6 | 5,148 | 40,000 | 626 lb |
Cortland County against the rest of New York
Among the 61 New York counties with data, Cortland County is number 16 of 61 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 67% of counties.
Softest in New York: Suffolk County at 1.6 gpg. Hardest: New York County at 161.1 gpg. Closest to Cortland County: Steuben County (14.1), Ontario County (15.1), Schenectady County (13.6).