How hard is the water in Muscatine County, IA?
13.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Muscatine County, IA is 227 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 120 samples at 46 sites between 1991 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 10.7 and 16.8 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 13.3 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 3.2 to 67.2 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Muscatine County was 55.2 mg/L and the hardest 1,150 mg/L, a 21-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 10.7 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 13.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 13.4 gpg
120 groundwater samples from 46 wells put the median at 227 mg/L. 47 surface samples from 6 sites put it at 229.3 mg/L. In Muscatine 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 290 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $52), 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 $152 a year.
Sizing at 13.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 798 | 24,000 | 97 lb |
| 2 | 1,596 | 24,000 | 194 lb |
| 4 | 3,192 | 24,000 | 388 lb |
| 6 | 4,788 | 40,000 | 583 lb |
Muscatine County against the rest of Iowa
Among the 93 Iowa counties with data, Muscatine County is number 88 of 93 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 63% of counties.
Softest in Iowa: Taylor County at 8.2 gpg. Hardest: Pocahontas County at 45.3 gpg. Closest to Muscatine County: Page County (13.4), Adair County (12.9), Decatur County (12.8).