How hard is the water in Crowley County, CO?
23.5 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Crowley County, CO is 402 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 23.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 116 samples at 34 sites between 1993 and 2023, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 20.7 and 32.3 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 23.5 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 11.7 to 134.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Crowley County was 200 mg/L and the hardest 2,310 mg/L, a 12-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 32.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 20.7 gpg.
Wells 64.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 23.2 gpg
4 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 1109.5 mg/L. 112 surface samples from 30 sites put it at 396.5 mg/L. In Crowley County the wells come out 41.6 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 513 lb of salt a year (13 bags of 40 lb, about $92), 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 $192 a year.
Sizing at 23.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,410 | 24,000 | 172 lb |
| 2 | 2,820 | 24,000 | 343 lb |
| 4 | 5,640 | 40,000 | 686 lb |
| 6 | 8,460 | 64,000 | 1,029 lb |
Crowley County against the rest of Colorado
Among the 63 Colorado counties with data, Crowley County is number 13 of 63 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 90% of counties.
Softest in Colorado: Larimer County at 0.4 gpg. Hardest: Mesa County at 143.7 gpg. Closest to Crowley County: Routt County (23.2), Denver County (24.2), Washington County (22.5).