How hard is the water in Perry County, IL?
30.8 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Perry County, IL is 528 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 30.8 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 22 samples at 17 sites between 2000 and 2003, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 9.5 and 40.3 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 30.8 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. Because Perry County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 7.8 to 53.7 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Perry County was 133 mg/L and the hardest 920 mg/L, a 7-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 40.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 9.5 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 674 lb of salt a year (17 bags of 40 lb, about $121), 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 $221 a year.
Sizing at 30.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,848 | 24,000 | 225 lb |
| 2 | 3,696 | 32,000 | 450 lb |
| 4 | 7,392 | 64,000 | 899 lb |
| 6 | 11,088 | 80,000 | 1,349 lb |
Perry County against the rest of Illinois
Among the 102 Illinois counties with data, Perry County is number 2 of 102 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 95% of counties.
Softest in Illinois: Pope County at 4.3 gpg. Hardest: Cook County at 34.8 gpg. Closest to Perry County: Madison County (28.7), Cook County (34.8), Kane County (25.7).