How hard is the water in Richland County, ND?
21.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Richland County, ND is 365 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 21.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 53 samples at 20 sites between 1990 and 2023, 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 16.9 and 24.5 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 21.3 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 8.7 to 115.7 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Richland County was 149 mg/L and the hardest 1,980 mg/L, a 13-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 24.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 16.9 gpg.
Wells 21.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 25.3 gpg
53 groundwater samples from 20 wells put the median at 365.3 mg/L. 309 surface samples from 16 sites put it at 433.5 mg/L. In Richland County the rivers and lakes come out 4.0 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 466 lb of salt a year (12 bags of 40 lb, about $84), 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 $184 a year.
Sizing at 21.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,278 | 24,000 | 155 lb |
| 2 | 2,556 | 24,000 | 311 lb |
| 4 | 5,112 | 40,000 | 622 lb |
| 6 | 7,668 | 64,000 | 933 lb |
Richland County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Richland County is number 23 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 87% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Richland County: Cass County (21.2), Wells County (21.2), Foster County (21.4).