How hard is the water in Pickens County, GA?

1 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Pickens County, GA is 16 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 1 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 158 samples at 12 sites between 2002 and 2023, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 0.6 and 1.6 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

You can skip the softener. At 1 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Pickens 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 0.5 to 2.2 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Pickens County was 8.6 mg/L and the hardest 37.5 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 1.6 gpg and the bottom quarter below 0.6 gpg.

Pickens County against the rest of Georgia

Among the 159 Georgia counties with data, Pickens County is number 122 of 159 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 6% of counties.

Softest in Georgia: Richmond County at 0.2 gpg. Hardest: Glynn County at 13.6 gpg. Closest to Pickens County: Crawford County (0.9), Harris County (0.9), Houston County (0.9).