How hard is the water in Mathews County, VA?
18.8 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Mathews County, VA is 322 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 18.8 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 7 sites between 1998 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 12 and 107.9 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 18.8 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 6.7 to 208.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Mathews County was 114 mg/L and the hardest 3,570 mg/L, a 31-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 107.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12 gpg.
Wells 18.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 142.8 gpg
7 groundwater samples from 7 wells put the median at 322 mg/L. 2 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 2445 mg/L. In Mathews County the rivers and lakes come out 124.0 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 411 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $74), 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 $174 a year.
Sizing at 18.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,128 | 24,000 | 137 lb |
| 2 | 2,256 | 24,000 | 274 lb |
| 4 | 4,512 | 32,000 | 549 lb |
| 6 | 6,768 | 48,000 | 823 lb |
Mathews County against the rest of Virginia
Among the 126 Virginia counties with data, Mathews County is number 3 of 126 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 81% of counties.
Softest in Virginia: Isle of Wight County at 0.4 gpg. Hardest: Clarke County at 20.1 gpg. Closest to Mathews County: Shenandoah County (19), Winchester city (18.3), Clarke County (20.1).