How hard is the water in Grant County, MN?
23.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Grant County, MN is 400 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 23.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 22 samples at 14 sites between 2009 and 2023, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 16.4 and 41.9 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 23.4 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 13.4 to 111.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Grant County was 230 mg/L and the hardest 1,900 mg/L, an 8-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 41.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 16.4 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 510 lb of salt a year (13 bags of 40 lb, about $92), 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 $192 a year.
Sizing at 23.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,404 | 24,000 | 171 lb |
| 2 | 2,808 | 24,000 | 342 lb |
| 4 | 5,616 | 40,000 | 683 lb |
| 6 | 8,424 | 64,000 | 1,025 lb |
Grant County against the rest of Minnesota
Among the 87 Minnesota counties with data, Grant County is number 15 of 87 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 90% of counties.
Softest in Minnesota: Lake County at 1.3 gpg. Hardest: Traverse County at 42.6 gpg. Closest to Grant County: Cottonwood County (23.2), St. Louis County (23.2), Hennepin County (23.6).