How hard is the water in Harding County, SD?
14 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Harding County, SD is 239 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 59 samples at 6 sites between 1999 and 2012, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 5.3 and 19.9 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 14 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. Because Harding County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 2.9 to 32.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Harding County was 50 mg/L and the hardest 550 mg/L, an 11-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 19.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 5.3 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 305 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $55), 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 $155 a year.
Sizing at 14 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 840 | 24,000 | 102 lb |
| 2 | 1,680 | 24,000 | 204 lb |
| 4 | 3,360 | 24,000 | 409 lb |
| 6 | 5,040 | 40,000 | 613 lb |
Harding County against the rest of South Dakota
Among the 55 South Dakota counties with data, Harding County is number 42 of 55 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 66% of counties.
Softest in South Dakota: Dewey County at 0.5 gpg. Hardest: Hanson County at 84.7 gpg. Closest to Harding County: Bon Homme County (14), Walworth County (13.4), Perkins County (15.1).