How hard is the water in Fulton County, OH?
17.5 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Fulton County, OH is 299 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 17.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 344 samples at 41 sites between 1996 and 2024, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 15.8 and 18.5 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 17.5 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 7.2 to 37.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Fulton County was 124 mg/L and the hardest 642 mg/L, a 5-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 18.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 15.8 gpg.
Wells 15.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 17.6 gpg
20 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 272.8 mg/L. 260 surface samples from 29 sites put it at 301.5 mg/L. In Fulton County the rivers and lakes come out 1.7 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 381 lb of salt a year (10 bags of 40 lb, about $69), 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 $169 a year.
Sizing at 17.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,050 | 24,000 | 128 lb |
| 2 | 2,100 | 24,000 | 256 lb |
| 4 | 4,200 | 32,000 | 511 lb |
| 6 | 6,300 | 48,000 | 767 lb |
Fulton County against the rest of Ohio
Among the 88 Ohio counties with data, Fulton County is number 49 of 88 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 77% of counties.
Softest in Ohio: Scioto County at 5.7 gpg. Hardest: Perry County at 113.3 gpg. Closest to Fulton County: Coshocton County (17.4), Van Wert County (17.6), Delaware County (17.3).