How hard is the water in Siskiyou County, CA?
5.7 grains per gallon
Optional: a softener helps, but plenty of homes skip it.
The median hardness measured in Siskiyou County, CA is 97 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 5.7 gpg. That is moderately hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 60 samples at 39 sites between 1992 and 2020, 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 2.3 and 11.7 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 5.7 gpg this is your call. Look for white film on glasses and crust on the shower head: if you see little of either, you can live without one. If you do want one, a 24,000-grain unit is enough, so ask for that size rather than a bigger one. Because Siskiyou County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on when a softener is not worth it.
From 0.6 to 22.8 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Siskiyou County was 11.1 mg/L and the hardest 391 mg/L, a 35-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 11.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 2.3 gpg.
Wells 5.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 8.9 gpg
60 groundwater samples from 39 wells put the median at 97.4 mg/L. 70 surface samples from 23 sites put it at 153 mg/L. In Siskiyou County the rivers and lakes come out 3.2 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 124 lb of salt a year (4 bags of 40 lb, about $22), 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 $122 a year.
Sizing at 5.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 342 | 24,000 | 42 lb |
| 2 | 684 | 24,000 | 83 lb |
| 4 | 1,368 | 24,000 | 166 lb |
| 6 | 2,052 | 24,000 | 250 lb |
Siskiyou County against the rest of California
Among the 58 California counties with data, Siskiyou County is number 41 of 58 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 33% of counties.
Softest in California: Sierra County at 1.7 gpg. Hardest: Calaveras County at 98.3 gpg. Closest to Siskiyou County: Madera County (5.6), Kings County (5.9), Del Norte County (5.2).