How hard is the water in Hand County, SD?

19.9 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Hand County, SD is 340 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 19.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 12 samples at 6 sites between 2000 and 2001, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 17 and 21.4 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 19.9 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 16.1 to 21.9 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Hand County was 275 mg/L and the hardest 375 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 21.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 17 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 434 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $78), 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 $178 a year.

Sizing at 19.9 gpg

Hand County against the rest of South Dakota

Among the 55 South Dakota counties with data, Hand County is number 32 of 55 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 84% of counties.

Softest in South Dakota: Dewey County at 0.5 gpg. Hardest: Hanson County at 84.7 gpg. Closest to Hand County: Yankton County (19.1), Brown County (21.2), Codington County (21.4).