How hard is the water in Johnson County, TX?
10.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Johnson County, TX is 187 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 10.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 33 samples at 2 sites between 1990 and 2016, 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 16.1 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 10.9 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. Because Johnson County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 0.5 to 21.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Johnson County was 9.1 mg/L and the hardest 364.5 mg/L, a 40-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 5.7 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 0.5 gpg, rivers and lakes 21.3 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 9.1 mg/L. 32 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 364.5 mg/L. In Johnson County the rivers and lakes come out 20.8 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.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 238 lb of salt a year (6 bags of 40 lb, about $43), 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 $143 a year.
Sizing at 10.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 654 | 24,000 | 80 lb |
| 2 | 1,308 | 24,000 | 159 lb |
| 4 | 2,616 | 24,000 | 318 lb |
| 6 | 3,924 | 32,000 | 477 lb |
Johnson County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Johnson County is number 129 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 54% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Johnson County: Bailey County (10.9), Donley County (11), Hartley County (11).