How hard is the water in Moore County, TX?
13 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Moore County, TX is 222 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 13 samples at 9 sites between 1990 and 2021, 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 12.7 and 13.2 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 13 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 7.2 to 14.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Moore County was 124 mg/L and the hardest 244 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 13.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.7 gpg.
Wells 13 gpg, rivers and lakes 18.6 gpg
13 groundwater samples from 9 wells put the median at 222 mg/L. 6 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 319 mg/L. In Moore County the rivers and lakes come out 5.6 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 283 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $51), 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 $151 a year.
Sizing at 13 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 780 | 24,000 | 95 lb |
| 2 | 1,560 | 24,000 | 190 lb |
| 4 | 3,120 | 24,000 | 380 lb |
| 6 | 4,680 | 40,000 | 569 lb |
Moore County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Moore County is number 110 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 62% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Moore County: Ochiltree County (13), Zavala County (13), Comanche County (12.9).