How hard is the water in Montgomery County, AL?

1.3 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Montgomery County, AL is 23 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 1.3 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 96 samples at 39 sites between 1990 and 2026, 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 0.6 and 2.5 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

You can skip the softener. At 1.3 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Montgomery County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 0.2 to 75.4 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Montgomery County was 3.4 mg/L and the hardest 1,290 mg/L, a 379-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 2.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 0.6 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.

Wells 1.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 3 gpg

96 groundwater samples from 39 wells put the median at 22.7 mg/L. 343 surface samples from 41 sites put it at 51.1 mg/L. In Montgomery County the rivers and lakes come out 1.7 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.

Montgomery County against the rest of Alabama

Among the 67 Alabama counties with data, Montgomery County is number 44 of 67 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 10% of counties.

Softest in Alabama: Washington County at 0.2 gpg. Hardest: Walker County at 13.1 gpg. Closest to Montgomery County: Dale County (1.3), Elmore County (1.3), Pickens County (1.3).