How hard is the water in Palo Pinto County, TX?
26.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Palo Pinto County, TX is 460 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 26.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 161 samples at 5 sites between 1990 and 2018, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 15.8 and 27.3 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 26.9 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 14.4 to 27.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Palo Pinto County was 246 mg/L and the hardest 473 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 27.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 15.8 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 587 lb of salt a year (15 bags of 40 lb, about $106), 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 $206 a year.
Sizing at 26.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,614 | 24,000 | 196 lb |
| 2 | 3,228 | 24,000 | 393 lb |
| 4 | 6,456 | 48,000 | 785 lb |
| 6 | 9,684 | 80,000 | 1,178 lb |
Palo Pinto County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Palo Pinto County is number 38 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 93% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Palo Pinto County: Brown County (27), Yoakum County (27.1), Lubbock County (26.3).