How hard is the water in Renville County, MN?
13.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Renville County, MN is 233 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 8 samples at 8 sites between 1991 and 2025, 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 11 and 18.4 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 13.6 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 9.1 to 39.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Renville County was 155 mg/L and the hardest 667 mg/L, a 4-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 18.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11 gpg.
Wells 13.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 29.2 gpg
8 groundwater samples from 8 wells put the median at 233 mg/L. 139 surface samples from 23 sites put it at 500 mg/L. In Renville County the rivers and lakes come out 15.6 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 297 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $54), 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 $154 a year.
Sizing at 13.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 816 | 24,000 | 99 lb |
| 2 | 1,632 | 24,000 | 199 lb |
| 4 | 3,264 | 24,000 | 397 lb |
| 6 | 4,896 | 40,000 | 596 lb |
Renville County against the rest of Minnesota
Among the 87 Minnesota counties with data, Renville County is number 61 of 87 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 65% of counties.
Softest in Minnesota: Lake County at 1.3 gpg. Hardest: Traverse County at 42.6 gpg. Closest to Renville County: Mille Lacs County (13.6), Wadena County (13.5), Kandiyohi County (13.4).