How hard is the water in Macon County, IL?
19.8 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Macon County, IL is 340 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 19.8 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 19 samples at 5 sites between 1990 and 2018, 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 18.8 and 22.5 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 19.8 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 18.5 to 26.2 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Macon County was 316 mg/L and the hardest 449 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 22.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 18.8 gpg.
Wells 19.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 16 gpg
19 groundwater samples from 5 wells put the median at 339.5 mg/L. 304 surface samples from 9 sites put it at 273.5 mg/L. In Macon County the wells come out 3.8 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 433 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $78), 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 $178 a year.
Sizing at 19.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,188 | 24,000 | 145 lb |
| 2 | 2,376 | 24,000 | 289 lb |
| 4 | 4,752 | 40,000 | 578 lb |
| 6 | 7,128 | 64,000 | 867 lb |
Macon County against the rest of Illinois
Among the 102 Illinois counties with data, Macon County is number 32 of 102 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 84% of counties.
Softest in Illinois: Pope County at 4.3 gpg. Hardest: Cook County at 34.8 gpg. Closest to Macon County: Tazewell County (19.9), Wabash County (19.9), Peoria County (19.8).