How hard is the water in Dickey County, ND?
21.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Dickey County, ND is 375 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 21.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 309 samples at 18 sites between 1990 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 19 and 27 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 21.9 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 7.5 to 30.7 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Dickey County was 129 mg/L and the hardest 525.5 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 27 gpg and the bottom quarter below 19 gpg.
Wells 20.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 23.1 gpg
7 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 350 mg/L. 302 surface samples from 16 sites put it at 395.5 mg/L. In Dickey County the rivers and lakes come out 2.7 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 478 lb of salt a year (12 bags of 40 lb, about $86), 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 $186 a year.
Sizing at 21.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,314 | 24,000 | 160 lb |
| 2 | 2,628 | 24,000 | 320 lb |
| 4 | 5,256 | 40,000 | 639 lb |
| 6 | 7,884 | 64,000 | 959 lb |
Dickey County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Dickey County is number 18 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 88% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Dickey County: Grant County (21.8), Divide County (21.7), Nelson County (22.2).