How hard is the water in Ochiltree County, TX?

13 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Ochiltree County, TX is 222 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 11 samples at 6 sites between 1999 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 11.7 and 15.5 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 10.3 to 20.1 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Ochiltree County was 177 mg/L and the hardest 343.5 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.7 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 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

Ochiltree County against the rest of Texas

Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Ochiltree County is number 109 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 Ochiltree County: Moore County (13), Zavala County (13), Comanche County (12.9).