How hard is the water in Crawford County, IA?
24.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Crawford County, IA is 418 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 24.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 25 samples at 10 sites between 1990 and 2006, 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 22.6 and 25.1 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 24.4 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 15.8 to 32.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Crawford County was 270 mg/L and the hardest 550 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 25.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 22.6 gpg.
Wells 24.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 17.6 gpg
25 groundwater samples from 10 wells put the median at 417.5 mg/L. 1 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 302 mg/L. In Crawford County the wells come out 6.8 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 533 lb of salt a year (14 bags of 40 lb, about $96), 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 $196 a year.
Sizing at 24.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,464 | 24,000 | 178 lb |
| 2 | 2,928 | 24,000 | 356 lb |
| 4 | 5,856 | 48,000 | 712 lb |
| 6 | 8,784 | 64,000 | 1,069 lb |
Crawford County against the rest of Iowa
Among the 93 Iowa counties with data, Crawford County is number 19 of 93 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 91% of counties.
Softest in Iowa: Taylor County at 8.2 gpg. Hardest: Pocahontas County at 45.3 gpg. Closest to Crawford County: Shelby County (24.8), Humboldt County (24), Ida County (23.7).