How hard is the water in Tarrant County, TX?
22 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Tarrant County, TX is 377 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 22 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 81 samples at 68 sites between 1990 and 2023, 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 20.7 and 35.6 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 22 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 0.7 to 201.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Tarrant County was 11.5 mg/L and the hardest 3,440 mg/L, a 299-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 35.6 gpg and the bottom quarter below 20.7 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 22 gpg, rivers and lakes 9 gpg
81 groundwater samples from 68 wells put the median at 377 mg/L. 1,244 surface samples from 24 sites put it at 153.5 mg/L. In Tarrant County the wells come out 13.0 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 481 lb of salt a year (13 bags of 40 lb, about $87), 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 $187 a year.
Sizing at 22 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,320 | 24,000 | 161 lb |
| 2 | 2,640 | 24,000 | 321 lb |
| 4 | 5,280 | 40,000 | 642 lb |
| 6 | 7,920 | 64,000 | 964 lb |
Tarrant County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Tarrant County is number 51 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 88% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Tarrant County: Irion County (22.1), Lamb County (22.1), Menard County (22.4).