How hard is the water in Greeley County, KS?
10.5 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Greeley County, KS is 180 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 10.5 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 1 samples at 1 sites between 2015 and 2015, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 10.5 and 10.5 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: low (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 10.5 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.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 230 lb of salt a year (6 bags of 40 lb, about $41), 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 $141 a year.
Sizing at 10.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 630 | 24,000 | 77 lb |
| 2 | 1,260 | 24,000 | 153 lb |
| 4 | 2,520 | 24,000 | 307 lb |
| 6 | 3,780 | 32,000 | 460 lb |
Greeley County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Greeley County is number 89 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 53% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Greeley County: Sheridan County (10.5), Chautauqua County (10.4), Douglas County (10.2).