How hard is the water in Grant County, KY?

11.9 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Grant County, KY is 204 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 11.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 21 samples at 2 sites between 2003 and 2004, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 11.4 and 12.4 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: low (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 11.9 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 11.0 to 12.8 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Grant County was 188 mg/L and the hardest 219.5 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 12.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.4 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 260 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $47), 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 $147 a year.

Sizing at 11.9 gpg

Grant County against the rest of Kentucky

Among the 104 Kentucky counties with data, Grant County is number 19 of 104 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 58% of counties.

Softest in Kentucky: Letcher County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 32.9 gpg. Closest to Grant County: Woodford County (11.9), Hopkins County (12), Washington County (12.1).