How hard is the water in Floyd County, IN?
6.5 grains per gallon
Optional: a softener helps, but plenty of homes skip it.
The median hardness measured in Floyd County, IN is 111 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 6.5 gpg. That is moderately hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 11 samples at 4 sites between 1992 and 2019, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 0.1 and 14.4 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 6.5 gpg this is your call. Look for white film on glasses and crust on the shower head: if you see little of either, you can live without one. If you do want one, a 24,000-grain unit is enough, so ask for that size rather than a bigger one. Because Floyd County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on when a softener is not worth it.
From 0.1 to 18.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Floyd County was 1.1 mg/L and the hardest 324 mg/L, a 295-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 14.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 0.1 gpg.
Wells 18.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 12.9 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 324 mg/L. 1 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 220 mg/L. In Floyd County the wells come out 6.0 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river 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 141 lb of salt a year (4 bags of 40 lb, about $25), 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 $125 a year.
Sizing at 6.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 390 | 24,000 | 47 lb |
| 2 | 780 | 24,000 | 95 lb |
| 4 | 1,560 | 24,000 | 190 lb |
| 6 | 2,340 | 24,000 | 285 lb |
Floyd County against the rest of Indiana
Among the 91 Indiana counties with data, Floyd County is number 89 of 91 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 37% of counties.
Softest in Indiana: Brown County at 3.8 gpg. Hardest: Warrick County at 40.3 gpg. Closest to Floyd County: Dubois County (7.1), Perry County (5.7), Clark County (7.4).