How hard is the water in Ellis County, OK?
13.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Ellis County, OK is 234 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 26 samples at 26 sites between 1992 and 2024, 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 11.8 and 16.2 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 13.7 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.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 7.9 to 31.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Ellis County was 135 mg/L and the hardest 537 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.8 gpg.
Wells 13.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 17.9 gpg
26 groundwater samples from 26 wells put the median at 234 mg/L. 170 surface samples from 8 sites put it at 306.3 mg/L. In Ellis County the rivers and lakes come out 4.2 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 299 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $54), 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 $154 a year.
Sizing at 13.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 822 | 24,000 | 100 lb |
| 2 | 1,644 | 24,000 | 200 lb |
| 4 | 3,288 | 24,000 | 400 lb |
| 6 | 4,932 | 40,000 | 600 lb |
Ellis County against the rest of Oklahoma
Among the 77 Oklahoma counties with data, Ellis County is number 37 of 77 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 65% of counties.
Softest in Oklahoma: McCurtain County at 0.8 gpg. Hardest: Greer County at 125 gpg. Closest to Ellis County: Osage County (13.8), Jefferson County (13.4), Cotton County (14).