How hard is the water in Pike County, KY?

13.9 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Pike County, KY is 238 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 405 samples at 9 sites between 1999 and 2026, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 12.9 and 16.3 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: medium (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 13.9 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 11.2 to 21.4 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Pike County was 191.5 mg/L and the hardest 365.5 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.9 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 304 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $55), 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 $155 a year.

Sizing at 13.9 gpg

Pike County against the rest of Kentucky

Among the 104 Kentucky counties with data, Pike County is number 8 of 104 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 66% of counties.

Softest in Kentucky: Letcher County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 32.9 gpg. Closest to Pike County: Trimble County (13.6), Oldham County (13.2), Union County (12.9).