How hard is the water in Edgar County, IL?

16.2 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Edgar County, IL is 277 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 16.2 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 115 samples at 8 sites between 1990 and 2004, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 14.3 and 16.6 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 16.2 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 10.7 to 17.2 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Edgar County was 184 mg/L and the hardest 295 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.6 gpg and the bottom quarter below 14.3 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 353 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $64), 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 $164 a year.

Sizing at 16.2 gpg

Edgar County against the rest of Illinois

Among the 102 Illinois counties with data, Edgar County is number 59 of 102 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 73% of counties.

Softest in Illinois: Pope County at 4.3 gpg. Hardest: Cook County at 34.8 gpg. Closest to Edgar County: Greene County (16.2), Bureau County (16.3), Crawford County (15.9).