How hard is the water in Perry County, TN?

3.1 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Perry County, TN is 53 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 3.1 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 54 samples at 5 sites between 1990 and 2013, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 2.6 and 3.2 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

You can skip the softener. At 3.1 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Perry County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 2.3 to 10.6 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Perry County was 39.1 mg/L and the hardest 182 mg/L, a 5-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 3.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 2.6 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.

Wells 10.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 2.9 gpg

1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 182 mg/L. 53 surface samples from 4 sites put it at 49 mg/L. In Perry County the wells come out 7.7 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.

Perry County against the rest of Tennessee

Among the 95 Tennessee counties with data, Perry County is number 69 of 95 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 22% of counties.

Softest in Tennessee: Fayette County at 0.5 gpg. Hardest: Fentress County at 42.9 gpg. Closest to Perry County: Wayne County (3), Moore County (3.2), Grundy County (3.3).