How hard is the water in Lubbock County, TX?
26.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Lubbock County, TX is 451 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 26.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 7 sites between 2001 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 17.6 and 37.2 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 26.3 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 11.8 to 48.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Lubbock County was 202 mg/L and the hardest 830 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 37.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 17.6 gpg.
Wells 26.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 39.4 gpg
7 groundwater samples from 7 wells put the median at 451 mg/L. 1 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 674 mg/L. In Lubbock County the rivers and lakes come out 13.1 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 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 575 lb of salt a year (15 bags of 40 lb, about $104), 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 $204 a year.
Sizing at 26.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,578 | 24,000 | 192 lb |
| 2 | 3,156 | 24,000 | 384 lb |
| 4 | 6,312 | 48,000 | 768 lb |
| 6 | 9,468 | 80,000 | 1,152 lb |
Lubbock County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Lubbock County is number 39 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 93% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Lubbock County: Hockley County (26.2), Palo Pinto County (26.9), Brown County (27).