How hard is the water in Wichita County, KS?

13.5 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Wichita County, KS is 231 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13.5 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 5 sites between 1999 and 2021, 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 11.7 and 15 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 13.5 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 9.9 to 16.2 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Wichita County was 169 mg/L and the hardest 278 mg/L, a 2-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15 gpg and the bottom quarter below 11.7 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 295 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $53), 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 $153 a year.

Sizing at 13.5 gpg

Wichita County against the rest of Kansas

Among the 105 Kansas counties with data, Wichita County is number 64 of 105 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 64% of counties.

Softest in Kansas: Woodson County at 6.3 gpg. Hardest: Linn County at 114.5 gpg. Closest to Wichita County: Stafford County (13.5), Kiowa County (13.4), Brown County (13.4).