How hard is the water in Greene County, TN?
14.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Greene County, TN is 244 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 9 samples at 8 sites between 1990 and 2019, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 12.9 and 19.2 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 14.3 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 4.8 to 25.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Greene County was 81.5 mg/L and the hardest 430 mg/L, a 5-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 19.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.9 gpg.
Wells 14.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 14.9 gpg
9 groundwater samples from 8 wells put the median at 244 mg/L. 702 surface samples from 62 sites put it at 254.3 mg/L. In Greene County the rivers and lakes come out 0.6 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 311 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $56), 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 $156 a year.
Sizing at 14.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 858 | 24,000 | 104 lb |
| 2 | 1,716 | 24,000 | 209 lb |
| 4 | 3,432 | 32,000 | 418 lb |
| 6 | 5,148 | 40,000 | 626 lb |
Greene County against the rest of Tennessee
Among the 95 Tennessee counties with data, Greene County is number 10 of 95 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 67% of counties.
Softest in Tennessee: Fayette County at 0.5 gpg. Hardest: Fentress County at 42.9 gpg. Closest to Greene County: Washington County (14.5), Sullivan County (14.5), Hamblen County (14.7).