How hard is the water in Currituck County, NC?
31.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Currituck County, NC is 538 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 31.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 11 samples at 8 sites between 1995 and 2014, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 18.7 and 39.1 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 31.4 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 4.7 to 64.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Currituck County was 80.6 mg/L and the hardest 1,100 mg/L, a 14-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 39.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 18.7 gpg.
Wells 5.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 34.1 gpg
3 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 98.3 mg/L. 7 surface samples from 5 sites put it at 584 mg/L. In Currituck County the rivers and lakes come out 28.4 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 686 lb of salt a year (18 bags of 40 lb, about $123), 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 $223 a year.
Sizing at 31.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,884 | 24,000 | 229 lb |
| 2 | 3,768 | 32,000 | 458 lb |
| 4 | 7,536 | 64,000 | 917 lb |
| 6 | 11,304 | 80,000 | 1,375 lb |
Currituck County against the rest of North Carolina
Among the 99 North Carolina counties with data, Currituck County is number 2 of 99 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 95% of counties.
Softest in North Carolina: Bertie County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Dare County at 63.7 gpg. Closest to Currituck County: Pamlico County (15.9), New Hanover County (14.5), Hyde County (13.2).