How hard is the water in Norton County, KS?
15.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Norton County, KS is 263 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 15.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 145 samples at 8 sites between 1990 and 2016, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 13.7 and 19.9 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 15.3 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 12.9 to 21.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Norton County was 220 mg/L and the hardest 370 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 19.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13.7 gpg.
Wells 13.5 gpg, rivers and lakes 18.3 gpg
2 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 231 mg/L. 143 surface samples from 6 sites put it at 312.5 mg/L. In Norton County the rivers and lakes come out 4.8 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 335 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $60), 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 $160 a year.
Sizing at 15.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 918 | 24,000 | 112 lb |
| 2 | 1,836 | 24,000 | 223 lb |
| 4 | 3,672 | 32,000 | 447 lb |
| 6 | 5,508 | 40,000 | 670 lb |
Norton County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Norton County is number 54 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 71% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Norton County: Marshall County (15.2), Trego County (15.1), Doniphan County (14.9).