How hard is the water in Richland County, WI?
14.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Richland County, WI is 255 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 35 samples at 8 sites between 1991 and 2004, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 12.6 and 15.5 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: medium (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 7.6 to 15.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Richland County was 130 mg/L and the hardest 272 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 12.6 gpg.
Wells 11.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 15.5 gpg
4 groundwater samples from 4 wells put the median at 202.5 mg/L. 31 surface samples from 4 sites put it at 265 mg/L. In Richland County the rivers and lakes come out 3.7 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 325 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 |
Richland County against the rest of Wisconsin
Among the 72 Wisconsin counties with data, Richland County is number 30 of 72 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 69% of counties.
Softest in Wisconsin: Vilas County at 1.4 gpg. Hardest: Calumet County at 28.4 gpg. Closest to Richland County: Brown County (14.8), Green Lake County (15), Shawano County (15).