How hard is the water in Wallace County, KS?
9.1 grains per gallon
A softener is worth it here.
The median hardness measured in Wallace County, KS is 156 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 9.1 gpg. That is hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 76 samples at 4 sites between 2000 and 2021, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 8.6 and 9.5 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 9.1 gpg a softener is worth getting, mainly to protect the water heater and cut soap use. Get at least two quotes, ask each installer what grain capacity they are fitting, and check it against the sizing table below.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 8.1 to 9.9 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Wallace County was 139 mg/L and the hardest 170 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 9.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 8.6 gpg.
Wells 8.5 gpg, rivers and lakes 9.6 gpg
2 groundwater samples from 2 wells put the median at 145 mg/L. 74 surface samples from 2 sites put it at 165 mg/L. In Wallace County the rivers and lakes come out 1.1 gpg harder. Here the surface water reads harder than the wells, which often points to streams fed by limestone springs or irrigation return flow. The two sources are close, so the county figure should hold whichever one your tap is on.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, a 24,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 198 lb of salt a year (5 bags of 40 lb, about $36), 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 $136 a year.
Sizing at 9.1 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 546 | 24,000 | 66 lb |
| 2 | 1,092 | 24,000 | 133 lb |
| 4 | 2,184 | 24,000 | 266 lb |
| 6 | 3,276 | 24,000 | 399 lb |
Wallace County against the rest of Kansas
Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Wallace County is number 99 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 47% of counties.
Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Wallace County: Bourbon County (9.3), Coffey County (9.3), Thomas County (9.6).