How hard is the water in Nowata County, OK?

12 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Nowata County, OK is 205 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 299 samples at 12 sites between 2000 and 2023, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 10.8 and 39.9 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: high (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 12 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 9.6 to 159.0 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Nowata County was 165 mg/L and the hardest 2,721 mg/L, a 16-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 39.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 10.8 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 261 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $47), 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 $147 a year.

Sizing at 12 gpg

Nowata County against the rest of Oklahoma

Among the 77 Oklahoma counties with data, Nowata County is number 46 of 77 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 58% of counties.

Softest in Oklahoma: McCurtain County at 0.8 gpg. Hardest: Greer County at 125 gpg. Closest to Nowata County: Oklahoma County (11.8), Ottawa County (11.5), Woodward County (12.4).