How hard is the water in Harrison County, TX?

1.5 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Harrison County, TX is 25 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 1.5 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 14 samples at 9 sites between 1990 and 2015, 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 1.4 and 3 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

You can skip the softener. At 1.5 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Harrison County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 0.6 to 11.5 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Harrison County was 10.7 mg/L and the hardest 196.5 mg/L, an 18-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 1.4 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.

Wells 1.5 gpg, rivers and lakes 1.3 gpg

14 groundwater samples from 9 wells put the median at 25.2 mg/L. 54 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 22.2 mg/L. In Harrison County the wells come out 0.2 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.

Harrison County against the rest of Texas

Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Harrison County is number 208 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 12% of counties.

Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Harrison County: Gonzales County (1.4), Gregg County (1.4), San Augustine County (1.4).