How hard is the water in Quay County, NM?

18.5 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Quay County, NM is 317 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 18.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 331 samples at 12 sites between 1990 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 16.7 and 28.4 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

At 18.5 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 13.3 to 43.5 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Quay County was 228 mg/L and the hardest 745.5 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 28.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 16.7 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 404 lb of salt a year (11 bags of 40 lb, about $73), 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 $173 a year.

Sizing at 18.5 gpg

Quay County against the rest of New Mexico

Among the 33 New Mexico counties with data, Quay County is number 10 of 33 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 80% of counties.

Softest in New Mexico: Rio Arriba County at 2.3 gpg. Hardest: Chaves County at 116.2 gpg. Closest to Quay County: Lea County (17.4), Doña Ana County (16.5), Cibola County (16.5).