How hard is the water in Kit Carson County, CO?
12.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Kit Carson County, CO is 218 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 91 samples at 6 sites between 1994 and 2021, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 10 and 14.3 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 12.7 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 Kit Carson 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 7.2 to 19.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Kit Carson County was 124 mg/L and the hardest 332 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 14.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 10 gpg.
Wells 12 gpg, rivers and lakes 12.7 gpg
6 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 205 mg/L. 85 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 218 mg/L. In Kit Carson County the rivers and lakes come out 0.7 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 278 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $50), 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 $150 a year.
Sizing at 12.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 762 | 24,000 | 93 lb |
| 2 | 1,524 | 24,000 | 185 lb |
| 4 | 3,048 | 24,000 | 371 lb |
| 6 | 4,572 | 40,000 | 556 lb |
Kit Carson County against the rest of Colorado
Among the 63 Colorado counties with data, Kit Carson County is number 28 of 63 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 61% of counties.
Softest in Colorado: Larimer County at 0.4 gpg. Hardest: Mesa County at 143.7 gpg. Closest to Kit Carson County: Clear Creek County (12.7), El Paso County (12.4), Montezuma County (13.2).