How hard is the water in Uintah County, UT?
27.9 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Uintah County, UT is 478 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 27.9 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 361 samples at 132 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 14.2 and 76.2 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 27.9 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 0.9 to 186.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Uintah County was 14.9 mg/L and the hardest 3,200 mg/L, a 215-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 76.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 14.2 gpg. So even here some sites draw water soft enough to need nothing at all.
Wells 27.9 gpg, rivers and lakes 14.9 gpg
361 groundwater samples from 132 wells put the median at 477.5 mg/L. 4,225 surface samples from 211 sites put it at 255 mg/L. In Uintah 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 40,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 609 lb of salt a year (16 bags of 40 lb, about $110), 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 $210 a year.
Sizing at 27.9 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,674 | 24,000 | 204 lb |
| 2 | 3,348 | 24,000 | 407 lb |
| 4 | 6,696 | 48,000 | 815 lb |
| 6 | 10,044 | 80,000 | 1,222 lb |
Uintah County against the rest of Utah
Among the 29 Utah counties with data, Uintah County is number 3 of 29 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 94% of counties.
Softest in Utah: Davis County at 9 gpg. Hardest: Emery County at 151.3 gpg. Closest to Uintah County: Juab County (28.5), Salt Lake County (25.9), Box Elder County (25.2).