How hard is the water in Waldo County, ME?

3.5 grains per gallon

Optional: a softener helps, but plenty of homes skip it.

The median hardness measured in Waldo County, ME is 60 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 3.5 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 14 samples at 8 sites between 1990 and 2011, 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 2.9 and 5.4 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 3.5 gpg this is your call. Look for white film on glasses and crust on the shower head: if you see little of either, you can live without one. If you do want one, a 24,000-grain unit is enough, so ask for that size rather than a bigger one. Because Waldo County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 2.5 to 7.1 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Waldo County was 42.1 mg/L and the hardest 122 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 5.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 2.9 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 77 lb of salt a year (2 bags of 40 lb, about $14), 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 $114 a year.

Sizing at 3.5 gpg

Waldo County against the rest of Maine

Among the 16 Maine counties with data, Waldo County is number 5 of 16 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 24% of counties.

Softest in Maine: Lincoln County at 0.7 gpg. Hardest: Penobscot County at 6.9 gpg. Closest to Waldo County: Kennebec County (3.4), Somerset County (3.5), Franklin County (3.2).