How hard is the water in Cowley County, KS?
16.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Cowley County, KS is 279 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 16.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 10 samples at 10 sites between 1990 and 2017, 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 and 18.3 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 16.3 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 5.9 to 27.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Cowley County was 101 mg/L and the hardest 468 mg/L, a 5-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 18.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11 gpg.
Wells 16.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 13.4 gpg
10 groundwater samples from 10 wells put the median at 279 mg/L. 671 surface samples from 21 sites put it at 230 mg/L. In Cowley County the wells come out 2.9 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 356 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 16.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 978 | 24,000 | 119 lb |
| 2 | 1,956 | 24,000 | 238 lb |
| 4 | 3,912 | 32,000 | 476 lb |
| 6 | 5,868 | 48,000 | 714 lb |
Cowley County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Cowley County is number 51 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 73% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Cowley County: Pottawatomie County (16.4), Chase County (16.1), Crawford County (16.1).