How hard is the water in Palm Beach County, FL?
17.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Palm Beach County, FL is 303 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 17.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 504 samples at 83 sites between 1990 and 2019, 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 12.3 and 21.5 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 17.7 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 1.9 to 103.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Palm Beach County was 32.5 mg/L and the hardest 1,770 mg/L, a 54-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 21.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.3 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 17.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 10.6 gpg
504 groundwater samples from 83 wells put the median at 303 mg/L. 1,904 surface samples from 237 sites put it at 181 mg/L. In Palm Beach County the wells come out 7.1 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river 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 387 lb of salt a year (10 bags of 40 lb, about $70), 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 $170 a year.
Sizing at 17.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,062 | 24,000 | 129 lb |
| 2 | 2,124 | 24,000 | 258 lb |
| 4 | 4,248 | 32,000 | 517 lb |
| 6 | 6,372 | 48,000 | 775 lb |
Palm Beach County against the rest of Florida
Among the 67 Florida counties with data, Palm Beach County is number 13 of 67 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 78% of counties.
Softest in Florida: Washington County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Sarasota County at 32.2 gpg. Closest to Palm Beach County: Hendry County (17.4), Collier County (18.1), Okeechobee County (18.1).