How hard is the water in Marion County, KS?

26 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Marion County, KS is 446 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 26 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 317 samples at 36 sites between 1990 and 2017, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 16.5 and 40.5 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: high (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 26 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 68.1 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Marion County was 82 mg/L and the hardest 1,165 mg/L, a 14-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 40.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 16.5 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 568 lb of salt a year (15 bags of 40 lb, about $102), 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 $202 a year.

Sizing at 26 gpg

Marion County against the rest of Kansas

Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Marion County is number 19 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 92% of counties.

Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Marion County: Johnson County (25.9), Lyon County (25.1), Meade County (25.1).