How hard is the water in Elkhart County, IN?
13.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Elkhart County, IN is 238 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 403 samples at 14 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 10.7 and 17.5 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 13.9 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 3.1 to 18.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Elkhart County was 53.5 mg/L and the hardest 310 mg/L, a 6-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 17.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 10.7 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 10.5 gpg, rivers and lakes 15.5 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 180 mg/L. 402 surface samples from 13 sites put it at 266 mg/L. In Elkhart County the rivers and lakes come out 5.0 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 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 304 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $55), 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 $155 a year.
Sizing at 13.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 834 | 24,000 | 101 lb |
| 2 | 1,668 | 24,000 | 203 lb |
| 4 | 3,336 | 24,000 | 406 lb |
| 6 | 5,004 | 40,000 | 609 lb |
Elkhart County against the rest of Indiana
Among the 91 Indiana counties with data, Elkhart County is number 65 of 91 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 66% of counties.
Softest in Indiana: Brown County at 3.8 gpg. Hardest: Warrick County at 40.3 gpg. Closest to Elkhart County: Dearborn County (13.9), Gibson County (14.2), Noble County (13.4).