How hard is the water in Hancock County, TN?
13.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Hancock County, TN is 234 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 6 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 and 15.4 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 13.7 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 1.6 to 16.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Hancock County was 26.6 mg/L and the hardest 289 mg/L, an 11-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 13.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 9.9 gpg
7 groundwater samples from 6 wells put the median at 234.3 mg/L. 319 surface samples from 41 sites put it at 170 mg/L. In Hancock County the wells come out 3.8 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river 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 299 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $54), 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 $154 a year.
Sizing at 13.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 822 | 24,000 | 100 lb |
| 2 | 1,644 | 24,000 | 200 lb |
| 4 | 3,288 | 24,000 | 400 lb |
| 6 | 4,932 | 40,000 | 600 lb |
Hancock County against the rest of Tennessee
Among the 95 Tennessee counties with data, Hancock County is number 11 of 95 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 65% of counties.
Softest in Tennessee: Fayette County at 0.5 gpg. Hardest: Fentress County at 42.9 gpg. Closest to Hancock County: Grainger County (13.3), Greene County (14.3), Washington County (14.5).