How hard is the water in Franklin County, NY?
3.4 grains per gallon
You do not need a softener here.
The median hardness measured in Franklin County, NY is 58 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 3.4 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 24 samples at 17 sites between 2004 and 2020, 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 2.2 and 8.4 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
You can skip the softener. At 3.4 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Franklin County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one. Because Franklin 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 0.5 to 28.7 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Franklin County was 9.2 mg/L and the hardest 492 mg/L, a 53-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 8.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 2.2 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.
Wells 3.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 0.8 gpg
24 groundwater samples from 17 wells put the median at 57.7 mg/L. 128 surface samples from 28 sites put it at 13 mg/L. In Franklin County the wells come out 2.6 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
Franklin County against the rest of New York
Among the 61 New York counties with data, Franklin County is number 56 of 61 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 24% of counties.
Softest in New York: Suffolk County at 1.6 gpg. Hardest: New York County at 161.1 gpg. Closest to Franklin County: Delaware County (3.4), Hamilton County (3.5), Sullivan County (3.2).