How hard is the water in Maries County, MO?
16.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Maries County, MO is 285 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 16.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 45 samples at 4 sites between 1993 and 2011, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 10.4 and 23.7 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (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. Because Maries County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 10.1 to 26.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Maries County was 173 mg/L and the hardest 451 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 23.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 10.4 gpg.
Wells 24.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 10.3 gpg
2 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 420.5 mg/L. 43 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 176.5 mg/L. In Maries County the wells come out 14.3 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 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 364 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 |
Maries County against the rest of Missouri
Among the 110 Missouri counties with data, Maries County is number 12 of 110 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 75% of counties.
Softest in Missouri: Livingston County at 4.1 gpg. Hardest: Reynolds County at 96.7 gpg. Closest to Maries County: Cape Girardeau County (16.4), Benton County (16.9), Macon County (16).