How hard is the water in Wicomico County, MD?

1.7 grains per gallon

You do not need a softener here.

The median hardness measured in Wicomico County, MD is 28 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 1.7 gpg. That is soft on the USGS scale. It comes from 125 samples at 61 sites between 1990 and 2023, 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 1.1 and 2.7 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

You can skip the softener. At 1.7 gpg the most a softener would fix is the odd water spot. If a salesperson in Wicomico County says otherwise, ask to see their reading in grains per gallon and compare it with this one.

More on when a softener is not worth it.

From 0.3 to 13.9 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Wicomico County was 5.7 mg/L and the hardest 237.5 mg/L, a 42-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 2.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 1.1 gpg. So even in a soft county, a handful of wells here produce water hard enough to scale a heater.

Wells 1.7 gpg, rivers and lakes 1.8 gpg

125 groundwater samples from 61 wells put the median at 28.3 mg/L. 34 surface samples from 10 sites put it at 31.6 mg/L. In Wicomico County the rivers and lakes come out 0.1 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.

Wicomico County against the rest of Maryland

Among the 24 Maryland counties with data, Wicomico County is number 22 of 24 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 13% of counties.

Softest in Maryland: Charles County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Washington County at 18.5 gpg. Closest to Wicomico County: Anne Arundel County (2.1), Caroline County (2.3), Howard County (2.5).