How hard is the water in Jones County, TX?

20.2 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Jones County, TX is 346 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 20.2 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 176 samples at 3 sites between 2010 and 2023, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 15.5 and 42.5 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

At 20.2 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 10.7 to 64.8 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Jones County was 183 mg/L and the hardest 1,110 mg/L, a 6-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 42.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 15.5 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 441 lb of salt a year (12 bags of 40 lb, about $79), 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 $179 a year.

Sizing at 20.2 gpg

Jones County against the rest of Texas

Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Jones County is number 58 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 84% of counties.

Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Jones County: Cameron County (20.2), Somervell County (20.3), Kerr County (20.4).