How hard is the water in Phillips County, KS?
27.5 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Phillips County, KS is 470 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 27.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 301 samples at 7 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 22.6 and 30.2 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
At 27.5 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 20.2 to 39.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Phillips County was 345 mg/L and the hardest 674 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 30.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 22.6 gpg.
Wells 39.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 25.4 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 674 mg/L. 300 surface samples from 6 sites put it at 435 mg/L. In Phillips County the wells come out 14.0 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 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 600 lb of salt a year (15 bags of 40 lb, about $108), 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 $208 a year.
Sizing at 27.5 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,650 | 24,000 | 201 lb |
| 2 | 3,300 | 24,000 | 402 lb |
| 4 | 6,600 | 48,000 | 803 lb |
| 6 | 9,900 | 80,000 | 1,205 lb |
Phillips County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Phillips County is number 18 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 93% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Phillips County: Barber County (27.7), Rush County (27.7), Clark County (28.6).