How hard is the water in Woods County, OK?
115.7 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Woods County, OK is 1981 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 115.7 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 235 samples at 10 sites between 2000 and 2024, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.
How much it varies here
Half the sites came in between 70.1 and 132.5 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: high (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 115.7 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 65.4 to 164.7 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Woods County was 1120 mg/L and the hardest 2,820 mg/L, a 3-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 132.5 gpg and the bottom quarter below 70.1 gpg.
What a softener would cost to run
For a household of 3, the water is harder than a standard single tank handles in a week, so plan on a larger or twin-tank unit. Expect about 2,528 lb of salt a year (64 bags of 40 lb, about $455), 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 $555 a year.
Sizing at 115.7 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 6,942 | 64,000 | 845 lb |
| 2 | 13,884 | twin tank | 1,689 lb |
| 4 | 27,768 | twin tank | 3,378 lb |
| 6 | 41,652 | twin tank | 5,068 lb |
Woods County against the rest of Oklahoma
Among the 77 Oklahoma counties with data, Woods County is number 5 of 77 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 99% of counties.
Softest in Oklahoma: McCurtain County at 0.8 gpg. Hardest: Greer County at 125 gpg. Closest to Woods County: Custer County (115.8), Dewey County (116.4), Payne County (111).