How hard is the water in Lucas County, IA?
16.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Lucas County, IA is 285 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 16.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 8 samples at 2 sites between 1992 and 2006, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 15.6 and 17.6 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: low (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 16.6 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 14.6 to 18.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Lucas County was 250 mg/L and the hardest 319 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 17.6 gpg and the bottom quarter below 15.6 gpg.
Wells 14.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 18.6 gpg
7 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 250 mg/L. 1 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 319 mg/L. In Lucas County the rivers and lakes come out 4.0 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 363 lb of salt a year (10 bags of 40 lb, about $65), 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 $165 a year.
Sizing at 16.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 996 | 24,000 | 121 lb |
| 2 | 1,992 | 24,000 | 242 lb |
| 4 | 3,984 | 32,000 | 485 lb |
| 6 | 5,976 | 48,000 | 727 lb |
Lucas County against the rest of Iowa
Among the 93 Iowa counties with data, Lucas County is number 70 of 93 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 75% of counties.
Softest in Iowa: Taylor County at 8.2 gpg. Hardest: Pocahontas County at 45.3 gpg. Closest to Lucas County: Mitchell County (16.6), Bremer County (16.5), Floyd County (16.9).