How hard is the water in Renville County, ND?
16 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Renville County, ND is 274 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 16 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 347 samples at 9 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 13.8 and 16.8 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 16 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 12.9 to 21.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Renville County was 221 mg/L and the hardest 360 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13.8 gpg.
Wells 14.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 16 gpg
7 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 249.3 mg/L. 340 surface samples from 7 sites put it at 274 mg/L. In Renville County the rivers and lakes come out 1.4 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.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 350 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $63), 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 $163 a year.
Sizing at 16 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 960 | 24,000 | 117 lb |
| 2 | 1,920 | 24,000 | 234 lb |
| 4 | 3,840 | 32,000 | 467 lb |
| 6 | 5,760 | 48,000 | 701 lb |
Renville County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Renville County is number 37 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 72% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Renville County: Eddy County (15.7), McKenzie County (16.4), Mountrail County (15.5).