How hard is the water in Griggs County, ND?
14.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Griggs County, ND is 245 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 10 samples at 6 sites between 1990 and 2016, 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 11.1 and 16.8 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 9.4 to 49.2 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Griggs County was 161 mg/L and the hardest 842 mg/L, a 5-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.1 gpg.
Wells 14.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 26.9 gpg
10 groundwater samples from 6 wells put the median at 244.5 mg/L. 168 surface samples from 11 sites put it at 460.5 mg/L. In Griggs County the rivers and lakes come out 12.6 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 312 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 |
Griggs County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Griggs County is number 42 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 67% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Griggs County: Mercer County (13.9), Benson County (14.9), Emmons County (15).