How hard is the water in Shelby County, KY?

11.4 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Shelby County, KY is 194 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 11.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 15 samples at 2 sites between 1999 and 2000, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 11 and 11.7 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: low (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 11.4 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 10.7 to 12.0 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Shelby County was 183 mg/L and the hardest 205.5 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 11.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 248 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $45), 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 $145 a year.

Sizing at 11.4 gpg

Shelby County against the rest of Kentucky

Among the 104 Kentucky counties with data, Shelby County is number 23 of 104 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 56% of counties.

Softest in Kentucky: Letcher County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 32.9 gpg. Closest to Shelby County: Bullitt County (11.3), Barren County (11.2), Logan County (11.2).