How hard is the water in Rich County, UT?
14.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Rich County, UT is 256 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 528 samples at 42 sites between 1991 and 2015, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 12 and 16.7 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 14.9 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 9.9 to 31.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Rich County was 169.1 mg/L and the hardest 530.4 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12 gpg.
Wells 11.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 15.2 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 203 mg/L. 527 surface samples from 41 sites put it at 259.7 mg/L. In Rich County the rivers and lakes come out 3.3 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 326 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $59), 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 $159 a year.
Sizing at 14.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 894 | 24,000 | 109 lb |
| 2 | 1,788 | 24,000 | 218 lb |
| 4 | 3,576 | 32,000 | 435 lb |
| 6 | 5,364 | 40,000 | 653 lb |
Rich County against the rest of Utah
Among the 29 Utah counties with data, Rich County is number 20 of 29 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 69% of counties.
Softest in Utah: Davis County at 9 gpg. Hardest: Emery County at 151.3 gpg. Closest to Rich County: Beaver County (14.9), Washington County (15.1), Iron County (15.4).