How hard is the water in Martin County, TX?
29.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Martin County, TX is 509 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 29.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 5 samples at 5 sites between 2001 and 2016, 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 20.5 and 34.3 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 29.7 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 16.6 to 73.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Martin County was 285 mg/L and the hardest 1,250 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 34.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 20.5 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 649 lb of salt a year (17 bags of 40 lb, about $117), 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 $217 a year.
Sizing at 29.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,782 | 24,000 | 217 lb |
| 2 | 3,564 | 32,000 | 434 lb |
| 4 | 7,128 | 64,000 | 867 lb |
| 6 | 10,692 | 80,000 | 1,301 lb |
Martin County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Martin County is number 33 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 94% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Martin County: Shackelford County (29.9), Bandera County (30.5), Howard County (28.4).