How hard is the water in Gove County, KS?
64.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Gove County, KS is 1100 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 64.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 78 samples at 4 sites between 2002 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 52.6 and 75.9 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 64.3 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 35.0 to 93.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Gove County was 600 mg/L and the hardest 1,600 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 75.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 52.6 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, the water is harder than a standard single tank handles in a week, so plan on a larger or twin-tank unit. Expect about 1,403 lb of salt a year (36 bags of 40 lb, about $253), 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 $353 a year.
Sizing at 64.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,858 | 32,000 | 469 lb |
| 2 | 7,716 | 64,000 | 939 lb |
| 4 | 15,432 | twin tank | 1,878 lb |
| 6 | 23,148 | twin tank | 2,816 lb |
Gove County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Gove County is number 3 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 99% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Gove County: Kearny County (60.2), Hamilton County (87.6), Russell County (35.3).