How hard is the water in Zavala County, TX?
13 grains per gallon
A softener will pay its way here.
The median hardness measured in Zavala County, TX is 222 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 13 gpg. That is very hard on the USGS scale. It comes from 7 samples at 5 sites between 1990 and 2016, 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 10 and 15 gpg. That spread crosses a decision line, so some homes here land on a different answer. A $10 test strip on your own tap settles it. Confidence in the county figure: medium (how it is measured).
What to do next
At 13 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. Because Zavala County straddles a decision line, check your own tap with a $10 test strip before you spend anything.
More on sizing a softener for your household.
From 7.4 to 125.6 gpg
The softest single sample on record in Zavala County was 126.5 mg/L and the hardest 2,150 mg/L, a 17-fold gap. The top quarter of sites read above 15 gpg and the bottom quarter below 10 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 283 lb of salt a year (8 bags of 40 lb, about $51), 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 $151 a year.
Sizing at 13 gpg
| People | Grains a day | Unit | Salt a year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 780 | 24,000 | 95 lb |
| 2 | 1,560 | 24,000 | 190 lb |
| 4 | 3,120 | 24,000 | 380 lb |
| 6 | 4,680 | 40,000 | 569 lb |
Zavala County against the rest of Texas
Among the 217 Texas counties with data, Zavala County is number 108 of 217 counting from the hardest. Across the whole country it is harder than 62% of counties.
Softest in Texas: Nacogdoches County at 0.3 gpg. Hardest: Ward County at 218.5 gpg. Closest to Zavala County: Moore County (13), Ochiltree County (13), Comanche County (12.9).