How hard is the water in Kearny County, KS?
60.2 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Kearny County, KS is 1030 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 60.2 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 105 samples at 4 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 38.3 and 81.1 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 60.2 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 28.7 to 87.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Kearny County was 491 mg/L and the hardest 1,500 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 81.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 38.3 gpg.
Wells 35.1 gpg, rivers and lakes 83.2 gpg
2 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 600.5 mg/L. 103 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 1425 mg/L. In Kearny County the rivers and lakes come out 48.1 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 80,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 1,314 lb of salt a year (33 bags of 40 lb, about $237), 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 $337 a year.
Sizing at 60.2 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,612 | 32,000 | 439 lb |
| 2 | 7,224 | 64,000 | 879 lb |
| 4 | 14,448 | twin tank | 1,758 lb |
| 6 | 21,672 | twin tank | 2,637 lb |
Kearny County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Kearny County is number 4 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 98% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Kearny County: Gove County (64.3), Russell County (35.3), Lincoln County (34.5).