How hard is the water in Steele County, ND?
35.8 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Steele County, ND is 612 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 35.8 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 96 samples at 11 sites between 1990 and 2012, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 30.2 and 36.9 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 35.8 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 16.4 to 177.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Steele County was 280 mg/L and the hardest 3,030 mg/L, an 11-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 36.9 gpg and the bottom quarter below 30.2 gpg.
Wells 32.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 36 gpg
4 groundwater samples from 3 wells put the median at 560 mg/L. 92 surface samples from 8 sites put it at 616 mg/L. In Steele County the rivers and lakes come out 3.3 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 48,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 781 lb of salt a year (20 bags of 40 lb, about $141), 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 $241 a year.
Sizing at 35.8 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,148 | 24,000 | 261 lb |
| 2 | 4,296 | 32,000 | 523 lb |
| 4 | 8,592 | 64,000 | 1,045 lb |
| 6 | 12,888 | twin tank | 1,568 lb |
Steele County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Steele County is number 6 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 96% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Steele County: Golden Valley County (35.4), Sargent County (32.5), Williams County (32.3).