How hard is the water in Sheridan County, WY?
24.3 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Sheridan County, WY is 416 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 24.3 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 70 samples at 40 sites between 1990 and 2022, 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 13 and 33.8 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 24.3 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 0.2 to 69.8 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Sheridan County was 4 mg/L and the hardest 1,195 mg/L, a 299-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 33.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 24.3 gpg, rivers and lakes 27 gpg
70 groundwater samples from 40 wells put the median at 416 mg/L. 2,201 surface samples from 29 sites put it at 462 mg/L. In Sheridan County the rivers and lakes come out 2.7 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 531 lb of salt a year (14 bags of 40 lb, about $96), 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 $196 a year.
Sizing at 24.3 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,458 | 24,000 | 177 lb |
| 2 | 2,916 | 24,000 | 355 lb |
| 4 | 5,832 | 48,000 | 710 lb |
| 6 | 8,748 | 64,000 | 1,064 lb |
Sheridan County against the rest of Wyoming
Among the 23 Wyoming counties with data, Sheridan County is number 4 of 23 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 91% of counties.
Softest in Wyoming: Park County at 1.4 gpg. Hardest: Natrona County at 124.4 gpg. Closest to Sheridan County: Hot Springs County (22.5), Big Horn County (26.4), Weston County (21.4).