How hard is the water in Houston County, TX?

6.6 grains per gallon

Optional: a softener helps, but plenty of homes skip it.

The median hardness measured in Houston County, TX is 113 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 6.6 gpg. That is moderately hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 162 samples at 2 sites between 1990 and 2017, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 5.7 and 7.5 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: low (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 6.6 gpg this is your call. Look for white film on glasses and crust on the shower head: if you see little of either, you can live without one. If you do want one, a 24,000-grain unit is enough, so ask for that size rather than a bigger one. Because Houston County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 4.8 to 8.4 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Houston County was 82.1 mg/L and the hardest 143 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 7.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 5.7 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 144 lb of salt a year (4 bags of 40 lb, about $26), 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 $126 a year.

Sizing at 6.6 gpg

Houston County against the rest of Texas

Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Houston County is number 165 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 37% of counties.

Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Houston County: Freestone County (6.6), Polk County (6.5), Navarro County (6.7).