How hard is the water in Harrison County, IA?
26.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Harrison County, IA is 450 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 26.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 32 samples at 14 sites between 1990 and 2006, 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 23.4 and 31.4 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 26.3 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 19.9 to 36.2 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Harrison County was 340 mg/L and the hardest 620 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 31.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 23.4 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 574 lb of salt a year (15 bags of 40 lb, about $103), 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 $203 a year.
Sizing at 26.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,578 | 24,000 | 192 lb |
| 2 | 3,156 | 24,000 | 384 lb |
| 4 | 6,312 | 48,000 | 768 lb |
| 6 | 9,468 | 80,000 | 1,152 lb |
Harrison County against the rest of Iowa
Among the 93 Iowa counties with data, Harrison County is number 14 of 93 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 93% of counties.
Softest in Iowa: Taylor County at 8.2 gpg. Hardest: Pocahontas County at 45.3 gpg. Closest to Harrison County: O'Brien County (26.1), Kossuth County (25.7), Woodbury County (25.7).