How hard is the water in Will County, IL?
15.4 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Will County, IL is 263 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 15.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 21 samples at 8 sites between 1990 and 2017, 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 13.3 and 26.8 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 15.4 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 11.0 to 33.3 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Will County was 189 mg/L and the hardest 570 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 26.8 gpg and the bottom quarter below 13.3 gpg.
Wells 15.4 gpg, rivers and lakes 18.1 gpg
21 groundwater samples from 8 wells put the median at 263 mg/L. 799 surface samples from 46 sites put it at 310 mg/L. In Will County the rivers and lakes come out 2.7 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 336 lb of salt a year (9 bags of 40 lb, about $60), 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 $160 a year.
Sizing at 15.4 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 924 | 24,000 | 112 lb |
| 2 | 1,848 | 24,000 | 225 lb |
| 4 | 3,696 | 32,000 | 450 lb |
| 6 | 5,544 | 40,000 | 675 lb |
Will County against the rest of Illinois
Among the 102 Illinois counties with data, Will County is number 64 of 102 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 71% of counties.
Softest in Illinois: Pope County at 4.3 gpg. Hardest: Cook County at 34.8 gpg. Closest to Will County: Hancock County (15.5), Brown County (15.2), Christian County (15.1).