How hard is the water in Leon County, TX?
44 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Leon County, TX is 753 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 44 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 16 samples at 16 sites between 1993 and 2015, 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 7.4 and 160.4 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 44 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 Leon 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 0.3 to 264.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Leon County was 4.3 mg/L and the hardest 4,520 mg/L, a 1,051-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 160.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.4 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 44 gpg, rivers and lakes 5 gpg
16 groundwater samples from 16 wells put the median at 752.5 mg/L. 4 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 85.1 mg/L. In Leon County the wells come out 39.0 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river 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 960 lb of salt a year (25 bags of 40 lb, about $173), 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 $273 a year.
Sizing at 44 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,640 | 24,000 | 321 lb |
| 2 | 5,280 | 40,000 | 642 lb |
| 4 | 10,560 | 80,000 | 1,285 lb |
| 6 | 15,840 | twin tank | 1,927 lb |
Leon County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Leon County is number 21 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 97% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Leon County: Mitchell County (44.9), Dawson County (42.9), Baylor County (45.3).