How hard is the water in Hettinger County, ND?

1.1 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Hettinger County, ND is 18 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 1.1 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 6 samples at 6 sites between 1990 and 2024, 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 0.9 and 1.3 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 1.1 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Hettinger 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 63.7 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Hettinger County was 10.8 mg/L and the hardest 1,090 mg/L, a 101-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 1.3 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 1.1 gpg, rivers and lakes 30.7 gpg

6 groundwater samples from 6 wells put the median at 18.3 mg/L. 160 surface samples from 6 sites put it at 525.3 mg/L. In Hettinger County the rivers and lakes come out 29.6 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.

Hettinger County against the rest of North Dakota

Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Hettinger County is the softest. Across the whole country it is harder than 7% of counties.

Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Hettinger County: Morton County (1.9), McHenry County (2.8), Adams County (3.4).