How hard is the water in Hickory County, MO?
12.5 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Hickory County, MO is 214 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 76 samples at 11 sites between 2000 and 2026, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 11.9 and 13.1 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 12.5 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 6.8 to 15.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Hickory County was 116.5 mg/L and the hardest 264 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 13.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.9 gpg.
Wells 15.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 12.4 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 264 mg/L. 75 surface samples from 10 sites put it at 213 mg/L. In Hickory County the wells come out 3.0 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.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 273 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $49), 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 $149 a year.
Sizing at 12.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 750 | 24,000 | 91 lb |
| 2 | 1,500 | 24,000 | 183 lb |
| 4 | 3,000 | 24,000 | 365 lb |
| 6 | 4,500 | 32,000 | 548 lb |
Hickory County against the rest of Missouri
Among the 110 Missouri counties with data, Hickory County is number 41 of 110 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 60% of counties.
Softest in Missouri: Livingston County at 4.1 gpg. Hardest: Reynolds County at 96.7 gpg. Closest to Hickory County: Lincoln County (12.6), Shelby County (12.4), Putnam County (12.3).