How hard is the water in Ellis County, TX?
7.1 grains per gallon
A softener is worth it here.
The median hardness measured in Ellis County, TX is 122 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 7.1 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 297 samples at 16 sites between 1990 and 2016, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 6.5 and 9.4 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 7.1 gpg a softener is worth getting, mainly to protect the water heater and cut soap use. Get at least two quotes, ask each installer what grain capacity they are fitting, and check it against the sizing table below. Because Ellis 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 0.6 to 13.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Ellis County was 10 mg/L and the hardest 227 mg/L, a 23-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 9.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 6.5 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 0.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 7.3 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 10 mg/L. 296 surface samples from 15 sites put it at 125 mg/L. In Ellis County the rivers and lakes come out 6.7 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. 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 156 lb of salt a year (4 bags of 40 lb, about $28), 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 $128 a year.
Sizing at 7.1 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 426 | 24,000 | 52 lb |
| 2 | 852 | 24,000 | 104 lb |
| 4 | 1,704 | 24,000 | 207 lb |
| 6 | 2,556 | 24,000 | 311 lb |
Ellis County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Ellis County is number 162 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 39% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Ellis County: Montgomery County (7.1), Bowie County (7.2), Duval County (7.2).