How hard is the water in Vernon County, WI?
15.2 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Vernon County, WI is 260 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 15.2 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 97 samples at 23 sites between 1991 and 2024, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 13.3 and 16.2 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 15.2 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 6.5 to 17.5 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Vernon County was 111 mg/L and the hardest 300 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 16.2 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13.3 gpg.
Wells 7.8 gpg, rivers and lakes 15.2 gpg
1 groundwater samples from 1 wells put the median at 133 mg/L. 96 surface samples from 22 sites put it at 260 mg/L. In Vernon County the rivers and lakes come out 7.4 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 332 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $60), 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 $160 a year.
Sizing at 15.2 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 912 | 24,000 | 111 lb |
| 2 | 1,824 | 24,000 | 222 lb |
| 4 | 3,648 | 32,000 | 444 lb |
| 6 | 5,472 | 40,000 | 666 lb |
Vernon County against the rest of Wisconsin
Among the 72 Wisconsin counties with data, Vernon County is number 27 of 72 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 70% of counties.
Softest in Wisconsin: Vilas County at 1.4 gpg. Hardest: Calumet County at 28.4 gpg. Closest to Vernon County: Shawano County (15), Kenosha County (15.3), Green Lake County (15).