How hard is the water in Knox County, TX?
47.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Knox County, TX is 820 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 47.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 37 samples at 21 sites between 1990 and 2012, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 27.2 and 89.4 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
At 47.9 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.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 14.7 to 212.1 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Knox County was 251.5 mg/L and the hardest 3,630 mg/L, a 14-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 89.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 27.2 gpg.
Wells 47.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 157.1 gpg
37 groundwater samples from 21 wells put the median at 820 mg/L. 346 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 2690 mg/L. In Knox County the rivers and lakes come out 109.2 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 64,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 1,046 lb of salt a year (27 bags of 40 lb, about $188), 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 $288 a year.
Sizing at 47.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,874 | 24,000 | 350 lb |
| 2 | 5,748 | 48,000 | 699 lb |
| 4 | 11,496 | twin tank | 1,399 lb |
| 6 | 17,244 | twin tank | 2,098 lb |
Knox County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Knox County is number 17 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 98% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Knox County: Pecos County (46), Baylor County (45.3), Mitchell County (44.9).