How hard is the water in Ketchikan Gateway Borough, AK?

0.9 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Ketchikan Gateway Borough, AK is 16 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 0.9 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 84 samples at 13 sites between 2003 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 0.3 and 3 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

You can skip the softener. At 0.9 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Ketchikan Gateway Borough says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 0.2 to 19.9 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Ketchikan Gateway Borough was 2.6 mg/L and the hardest 340 mg/L, a 131-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 0.3 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.

Ketchikan Gateway Borough against the rest of Alaska

Among the 22 Alaska counties with data, Ketchikan Gateway Borough is number 20 of 22 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 6% of counties.

Softest in Alaska: Petersburg Borough at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Southeast Fairbanks Census Area at 16.3 gpg. Closest to Ketchikan Gateway Borough: Sitka City and Borough (0.9), Lake and Peninsula Borough (1.3), Petersburg Borough (0.3).