How hard is the water in Logan County, KS?
34 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Logan County, KS is 583 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 34 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 100 samples at 2 sites between 1990 and 2016, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 23.6 and 44.5 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: low (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 34 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 13.1 to 54.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Logan County was 225 mg/L and the hardest 940 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 44.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 23.6 gpg.
Wells 13.1 gpg, rivers and lakes 54.9 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 225 mg/L. 99 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 940 mg/L. In Logan County the rivers and lakes come out 41.8 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 48,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 743 lb of salt a year (19 bags of 40 lb, about $134), 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 $234 a year.
Sizing at 34 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,040 | 24,000 | 248 lb |
| 2 | 4,080 | 32,000 | 496 lb |
| 4 | 8,160 | 64,000 | 993 lb |
| 6 | 12,240 | twin tank | 1,489 lb |
Logan County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Logan County is number 7 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 96% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Logan County: Lincoln County (34.5), Russell County (35.3), Osborne County (31.4).