How hard is the water in Mingo County, WV?
7.3 grains per gallon
A softener is worth it here.
The median hardness measured in Mingo County, WV is 125 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 7.3 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 5 samples at 5 sites between 1999 and 2017, 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 5.5 and 8.2 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 7.3 gpg a softener is worth getting, mainly to protect the water heater and cut soap use. Get at least two quotes, ask each installer what grain capacity they are fitting, and check it against the sizing table below. Because Mingo 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 1.9 to 28.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Mingo County was 32.1 mg/L and the hardest 489 mg/L, a 15-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 8.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 5.5 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 7.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 12.3 gpg
5 groundwater samples from 5 wells put the median at 125 mg/L. 126 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 210.5 mg/L. In Mingo County the rivers and lakes come out 5.0 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 159 lb of salt a year (4 bags of 40 lb, about $29), 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 $129 a year.
Sizing at 7.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 438 | 24,000 | 53 lb |
| 2 | 876 | 24,000 | 107 lb |
| 4 | 1,752 | 24,000 | 213 lb |
| 6 | 2,628 | 24,000 | 320 lb |
Mingo County against the rest of West Virginia
Among the 54 West Virginia counties with data, Mingo County is number 20 of 54 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 40% of counties.
Softest in West Virginia: Calhoun County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 20.4 gpg. Closest to Mingo County: Pendleton County (7.3), Lincoln County (7.2), Pocahontas County (7.4).