How hard is the water in Curry County, NM?
15.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Curry County, NM is 270 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 15.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 60 samples at 44 sites between 2001 and 2022, 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 10.5 and 19.5 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 15.7 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. Because Curry County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 7.7 to 43.7 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Curry County was 132 mg/L and the hardest 748.5 mg/L, a 6-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 19.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 10.5 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 344 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $62), 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 $162 a year.
Sizing at 15.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 942 | 24,000 | 115 lb |
| 2 | 1,884 | 24,000 | 229 lb |
| 4 | 3,768 | 32,000 | 458 lb |
| 6 | 5,652 | 40,000 | 688 lb |
Curry County against the rest of New Mexico
Among the 33 New Mexico counties with data, Curry County is number 16 of 33 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 72% of counties.
Softest in New Mexico: Rio Arriba County at 2.3 gpg. Hardest: Chaves County at 116.2 gpg. Closest to Curry County: Bernalillo County (15.8), Harding County (16.3), Cibola County (16.5).