How hard is the water in Logan County, ND?
18.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Logan County, ND is 320 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 18.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 29 samples at 16 sites between 1992 and 2016, 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 16.1 and 21.9 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 18.7 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.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 4.8 to 27.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Logan County was 82.4 mg/L and the hardest 468 mg/L, a 6-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 21.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 16.1 gpg.
Wells 18.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 25.6 gpg
29 groundwater samples from 16 wells put the median at 319.5 mg/L. 2 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 439 mg/L. In Logan County the rivers and lakes come out 6.9 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 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 408 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $73), 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 $173 a year.
Sizing at 18.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,122 | 24,000 | 137 lb |
| 2 | 2,244 | 24,000 | 273 lb |
| 4 | 4,488 | 32,000 | 546 lb |
| 6 | 6,732 | 48,000 | 819 lb |
Logan County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Logan County is number 29 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 81% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Logan County: McIntosh County (18.6), Slope County (18.5), Stutsman County (19).