How hard is the water in Lorain County, OH?

13.1 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Lorain County, OH is 224 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.1 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 1,107 samples at 133 sites between 1999 and 2024, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 11.3 and 15.1 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 13.1 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 69.5 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Lorain County was 82.5 mg/L and the hardest 1,190 mg/L, a 14-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.3 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 286 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $51), 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 $151 a year.

Sizing at 13.1 gpg

Lorain County against the rest of Ohio

Among the 88 Ohio counties with data, Lorain County is number 73 of 88 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 62% of counties.

Softest in Ohio: Scioto County at 5.7 gpg. Hardest: Perry County at 113.3 gpg. Closest to Lorain County: Holmes County (13.2), Geauga County (13.3), Mahoning County (12.6).