How hard is the water in Lipscomb County, TX?
12.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Lipscomb County, TX is 213 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 13 samples at 8 sites between 1999 and 2020, 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 11.9 and 13.6 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 12.4 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 11.1 to 15.7 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Lipscomb County was 190.5 mg/L and the hardest 268 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 13.6 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.9 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 272 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $49), 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 $149 a year.
Sizing at 12.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 744 | 24,000 | 91 lb |
| 2 | 1,488 | 24,000 | 181 lb |
| 4 | 2,976 | 24,000 | 362 lb |
| 6 | 4,464 | 32,000 | 543 lb |
Lipscomb County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Lipscomb County is number 115 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 60% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Lipscomb County: Lee County (12.4), McMullen County (12.4), Aransas County (12.7).