How hard is the water in Henry County, AL?

1.2 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Henry County, AL is 20 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 1.2 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 102 samples at 13 sites between 1994 and 2024, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 0.9 and 1.4 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

You can skip the softener. At 1.2 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Henry 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 10.6 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Henry County was 10.3 mg/L and the hardest 182 mg/L, an 18-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 1.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 0.9 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.

Wells 10.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 1.1 gpg

1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 182 mg/L. 101 surface samples from 12 sites put it at 19.2 mg/L. In Henry County the wells come out 9.5 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.

Henry County against the rest of Alabama

Among the 67 Alabama counties with data, Henry County is number 50 of 67 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 8% of counties.

Softest in Alabama: Washington County at 0.2 gpg. Hardest: Walker County at 13.1 gpg. Closest to Henry County: Baldwin County (1.1), Chilton County (1.3), Russell County (1.2).