How hard is the water in Iberville Parish, LA?
7.8 grains per gallon
A softener is worth it here.
The median hardness measured in Iberville Parish, LA is 134 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 7.8 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 652 samples at 18 sites between 1990 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 7.3 and 9.4 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
At 7.8 gpg a softener is worth getting, mainly to protect the water heater and cut soap use. Get at least two quotes, ask each installer what grain capacity they are fitting, and check it against the sizing table below.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 0.7 to 20.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Iberville Parish was 11.6 mg/L and the hardest 353 mg/L, a 30-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 9.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.3 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 12.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 7.7 gpg
4 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 218 mg/L. 648 surface samples from 14 sites put it at 131.3 mg/L. In Iberville Parish the wells come out 5.0 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 171 lb of salt a year (5 bags of 40 lb, about $31), 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 $131 a year.
Sizing at 7.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 468 | 24,000 | 57 lb |
| 2 | 936 | 24,000 | 114 lb |
| 4 | 1,872 | 24,000 | 228 lb |
| 6 | 2,808 | 24,000 | 342 lb |
Iberville Parish against the rest of Louisiana
Among the 64 Louisiana counties with data, Iberville Parish is number 32 of 64 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 42% of counties.
Softest in Louisiana: Lincoln Parish at 0.1 gpg. Hardest: St. Bernard Parish at 53.9 gpg. Closest to Iberville Parish: Pointe Coupee Parish (7.7), Morehouse Parish (7.7), Assumption Parish (7.6).