How hard is the water in Pecos County, TX?
46 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Pecos County, TX is 788 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 46 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 38 samples at 38 sites between 1991 and 2017, 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 29.7 and 94.3 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 46 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 13.7 to 217.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Pecos County was 234 mg/L and the hardest 3,730 mg/L, a 16-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 94.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 29.7 gpg.
Wells 46 gpg, rivers and lakes 213.8 gpg
38 groundwater samples from 38 wells put the median at 788 mg/L. 5 surface samples from 5 sites put it at 3660 mg/L. In Pecos County the rivers and lakes come out 167.8 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 64,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 1,005 lb of salt a year (26 bags of 40 lb, about $181), 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 $281 a year.
Sizing at 46 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,760 | 24,000 | 336 lb |
| 2 | 5,520 | 40,000 | 672 lb |
| 4 | 11,040 | 80,000 | 1,343 lb |
| 6 | 16,560 | twin tank | 2,015 lb |
Pecos County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Pecos County is number 18 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 98% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Pecos County: Baylor County (45.3), Mitchell County (44.9), Knox County (47.9).