How hard is the water in Morgan County, OH?
15.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Morgan County, OH is 273 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 15.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 379 samples at 67 sites between 1990 and 2024, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 12.3 and 19.1 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
At 15.9 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 2.7 to 50.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Morgan County was 46 mg/L and the hardest 864 mg/L, a 19-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 19.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.3 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 15.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 15.8 gpg
15 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 269.5 mg/L. 320 surface samples from 55 sites put it at 270 mg/L. In Morgan County the rivers and lakes come out 0.1 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.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 348 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $63), 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 $163 a year.
Sizing at 15.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 954 | 24,000 | 116 lb |
| 2 | 1,908 | 24,000 | 232 lb |
| 4 | 3,816 | 32,000 | 464 lb |
| 6 | 5,724 | 48,000 | 696 lb |
Morgan County against the rest of Ohio
Among the 88 Ohio counties with data, Morgan County is number 58 of 88 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 72% of counties.
Softest in Ohio: Scioto County at 5.7 gpg. Hardest: Perry County at 113.3 gpg. Closest to Morgan County: Defiance County (15.9), Muskingum County (16.1), Columbiana County (15.7).