How hard is the water in McPherson County, KS?
17.5 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in McPherson County, KS is 300 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 17.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 93 samples at 18 sites between 1993 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 8.2 and 21 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 17.5 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 McPherson 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 5.1 to 81.8 gpg
The softest single sample on record in McPherson County was 87.8 mg/L and the hardest 1,400 mg/L, a 16-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 21 gpg and the bottom quarter below 8.2 gpg.
Wells 15.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 18.7 gpg
3 groundwater samples from 3 wells put the median at 262 mg/L. 90 surface samples from 15 sites put it at 320 mg/L. In McPherson County the rivers and lakes come out 3.4 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 383 lb of salt a year (10 bags of 40 lb, about $69), 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 $169 a year.
Sizing at 17.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,050 | 24,000 | 128 lb |
| 2 | 2,100 | 24,000 | 256 lb |
| 4 | 4,200 | 32,000 | 511 lb |
| 6 | 6,300 | 48,000 | 767 lb |
McPherson County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, McPherson County is number 44 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 77% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to McPherson County: Grant County (17.4), Riley County (17.6), Wabaunsee County (17.7).