How hard is the water in Preston County, WV?
3.1 grains per gallon
You do not need a softener here.
The median hardness measured in Preston County, WV is 53 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 3.1 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 14 samples at 14 sites between 1993 and 2021, drawn from groundwater wells, which is what most taps and private wells in the county draw on.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 1.6 and 7.4 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
You can skip the softener. At 3.1 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Preston County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one. Because Preston County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on when a softener is not worth it.
From 0.2 to 41.4 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Preston County was 3.5 mg/L and the hardest 709 mg/L, a 203-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 7.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 1.6 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.
Wells 3.1 gpg, rivers and lakes 4.3 gpg
14 groundwater samples from 14 wells put the median at 53.2 mg/L. 54 surface samples from 11 sites put it at 73.4 mg/L. In Preston County the rivers and lakes come out 1.2 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
Preston County against the rest of West Virginia
Among the 54 West Virginia counties with data, Preston County is number 48 of 54 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 22% of counties.
Softest in West Virginia: Calhoun County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 20.4 gpg. Closest to Preston County: Clay County (3.1), Randolph County (2.5), Upshur County (2.4).