How hard is the water in Silver Bow County, MT?
12.6 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Silver Bow County, MT is 215 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 12.6 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 559 samples at 45 sites between 1990 and 2025, 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 7.4 and 16.3 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 12.6 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. Because Silver Bow County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 3.5 to 45.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Silver Bow County was 59.9 mg/L and the hardest 785 mg/L, a 13-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.3 gpg and the bottom quarter below 7.4 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 12.6 gpg, rivers and lakes 7.8 gpg
559 groundwater samples from 45 wells put the median at 215 mg/L. 1,550 surface samples from 67 sites put it at 134 mg/L. In Silver Bow County the wells come out 4.8 gpg harder. Groundwater sits in contact with rock for years and picks up calcium and magnesium as it goes, so wells usually read harder. A utility here that draws from the river 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 274 lb of salt a year (7 bags of 40 lb, about $49), 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 $149 a year.
Sizing at 12.6 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 756 | 24,000 | 92 lb |
| 2 | 1,512 | 24,000 | 184 lb |
| 4 | 3,024 | 24,000 | 368 lb |
| 6 | 4,536 | 32,000 | 552 lb |
Silver Bow County against the rest of Montana
Among the 56 Montana counties with data, Silver Bow County is number 36 of 56 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 60% of counties.
Softest in Montana: Lincoln County at 3.4 gpg. Hardest: Rosebud County at 138.9 gpg. Closest to Silver Bow County: Garfield County (12.3), Broadwater County (13.6), Glacier County (13.6).