How hard is the water in Rawlins County, KS?
11.2 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Rawlins County, KS is 191 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 11.2 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 6 samples at 3 sites between 2003 and 2014, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 11 and 12.9 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 11.2 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 10.9 to 14.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Rawlins County was 186 mg/L and the hardest 250 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 12.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11 gpg.
Wells 11 gpg, rivers and lakes 14.6 gpg
2 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 188.5 mg/L. 4 surface samples from 1 sites put it at 250 mg/L. In Rawlins County the rivers and lakes come out 3.6 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. A utility here that draws from the aquifer can deliver noticeably different water from a private well next door.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 244 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $44), 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 $144 a year.
Sizing at 11.2 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 672 | 24,000 | 82 lb |
| 2 | 1,344 | 24,000 | 164 lb |
| 4 | 2,688 | 24,000 | 327 lb |
| 6 | 4,032 | 32,000 | 491 lb |
Rawlins County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Rawlins County is number 85 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 55% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Rawlins County: Allen County (11.1), Jefferson County (11.1), Ottawa County (11.2).