How hard is the water in Traill County, ND?
21.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Traill County, ND is 367 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 21.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 7 sites between 1990 and 2024, 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 65 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 21.4 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 18.9 to 163.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Traill County was 323 mg/L and the hardest 2,800 mg/L, a 9-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 65 gpg and the bottom quarter below 20.7 gpg.
Wells 21.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 31 gpg
7 groundwater samples from 7 wells put the median at 367 mg/L. 497 surface samples from 8 sites put it at 531 mg/L. In Traill County the rivers and lakes come out 9.6 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 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 468 lb of salt a year (12 bags of 40 lb, about $84), 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 $184 a year.
Sizing at 21.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,284 | 24,000 | 156 lb |
| 2 | 2,568 | 24,000 | 312 lb |
| 4 | 5,136 | 40,000 | 625 lb |
| 6 | 7,704 | 64,000 | 937 lb |
Traill County against the rest of North Dakota
Among the 53 North Dakota counties with data, Traill County is number 21 of 53 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 87% of counties.
Softest in North Dakota: Hettinger County at 1.1 gpg. Hardest: Walsh County at 54 gpg. Closest to Traill County: Foster County (21.4), Richland County (21.3), Cass County (21.2).