How hard is the water in Wayne County, WV?

14.2 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Wayne County, WV is 243 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 14.2 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 36 samples at 5 sites between 2002 and 2020, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 13.9 and 14.4 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 14.2 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 8.2 to 15.7 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Wayne County was 140 mg/L and the hardest 268 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 14.4 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13.9 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 310 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $56), 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 $156 a year.

Sizing at 14.2 gpg

Wayne County against the rest of West Virginia

Among the 54 West Virginia counties with data, Wayne County is number 4 of 54 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 67% of counties.

Softest in West Virginia: Calhoun County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Jefferson County at 20.4 gpg. Closest to Wayne County: Mineral County (12.7), Tyler County (10.7), Barbour County (10.4).