How hard is the water in Worth County, IA?

20.4 grains per gallon

A softener will pay its way here.

The median hardness measured in Worth County, IA is 350 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 20.4 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 4 sites between 1991 and 2017, drawn from every sampling site in the county, wells and surface water together.

How much it varies here

Half the sites came in between 17.3 and 23.7 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: medium (how it is measured).

What to do next

At 20.4 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 16.8 to 24.5 gpg

The softest single sample on record in Worth County was 287 mg/L and the hardest 420 mg/L, a 1-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 23.7 gpg and the bottom quarter below 17.3 gpg.

What a softener would cost to run

For a household of 3, a 32,000-grain unit covers a week between regenerations. Expect about 447 lb of salt a year (12 bags of 40 lb, about $80), 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 $180 a year.

Sizing at 20.4 gpg

Worth County against the rest of Iowa

Among the 93 Iowa counties with data, Worth County is number 41 of 93 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 85% of counties.

Softest in Iowa: Taylor County at 8.2 gpg. Hardest: Pocahontas County at 45.3 gpg. Closest to Worth County: Fremont County (20.4), Jasper County (20.4), Dickinson County (20).