How hard is the water in Texas County, OK?
14 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Texas County, OK is 240 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 19 samples at 15 sites between 1996 and 2021, 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 17.1 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: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 14 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 9.9 to 23.0 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Texas County was 170 mg/L and the hardest 393 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 17.1 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13 gpg.
Wells 14 gpg, rivers and lakes 42.1 gpg
19 groundwater samples from 15 wells put the median at 240 mg/L. 30 surface samples from 4 sites put it at 720 mg/L. In Texas County the rivers and lakes come out 28.1 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 306 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $55), 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 $155 a year.
Sizing at 14 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 840 | 24,000 | 102 lb |
| 2 | 1,680 | 24,000 | 204 lb |
| 4 | 3,360 | 24,000 | 409 lb |
| 6 | 5,040 | 40,000 | 613 lb |
Texas County against the rest of Oklahoma
Among the 77 Oklahoma counties with data, Texas County is number 34 of 77 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 66% of counties.
Softest in Oklahoma: McCurtain County at 0.8 gpg. Hardest: Greer County at 125 gpg. Closest to Texas County: Cotton County (14), Osage County (13.8), Ellis County (13.7).