Water hardness in Alabama
Alabama has a median ambient water hardness of 49 mg/L, which is 2.9 grains per gallon and classes as soft. That is the middle of 55,075 samples across 67 counties.
This is ambient water, not tap water. These figures come from samples taken from wells, streams and springs by USGS, EPA and state agencies. Municipal utilities treat, blend and sometimes soften water before it reaches a tap, so a city supply can be considerably softer than the ground beneath it. Treat this as a good guide for a private well and an approximate one for city water. Your utility's annual water quality report gives the real number for a municipal tap, and a test strip gives it for yours.
Every monitored county in Alabama
Ranked hardest first. The middle 50% column shows how much the samples within a county vary, which matters more than the median where a county spans two geologies.
| County | mg/L | gpg | Class | Middle 50% | Samples |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jefferson County | 146 | 8.5 | Hard | 96 to 186 | 3,088 |
| Jackson County | 105 | 6.1 | Moderately hard | 68 to 142 | 1,037 |
| Lawrence County | 102 | 6 | Moderately hard | 60 to 146 | 611 |
| Walker County | 98 | 5.7 | Moderately hard | 33 to 290 | 650 |
| Shelby County | 92 | 5.4 | Moderately hard | 63 to 128 | 1,552 |
| Colbert County | 91 | 5.3 | Moderately hard | 64 to 123 | 505 |
| Calhoun County | 89 | 5.2 | Moderately hard | 43 to 117 | 333 |
| Franklin County | 88 | 5.1 | Moderately hard | 26 to 128 | 229 |
| Morgan County | 86 | 5 | Moderately hard | 69 to 108 | 357 |
| Madison County | 84 | 4.9 | Moderately hard | 58 to 130 | 1,953 |
| Talladega County | 80 | 4.7 | Moderately hard | 61 to 105 | 926 |
| Bibb County | 77 | 4.5 | Moderately hard | 35 to 110 | 637 |
| St. Clair County | 73 | 4.3 | Moderately hard | 58 to 92 | 759 |
| Blount County | 71 | 4.1 | Moderately hard | 36 to 113 | 684 |
| Etowah County | 70 | 4.1 | Moderately hard | 51 to 110 | 580 |
| Marengo County | 62 | 3.6 | Moderately hard | 30 to 96 | 433 |
| Lauderdale County | 61 | 3.6 | Moderately hard | 43 to 73 | 639 |
| Mobile County | 60 | 3.5 | Soft | 13 to 595 | 6,009 |
| Marshall County | 60 | 3.5 | Soft | 29 to 80 | 471 |
| Limestone County | 58 | 3.4 | Soft | 44 to 78 | 594 |
| Choctaw County | 57 | 3.3 | Soft | 36 to 89 | 1,677 |
| Cherokee County | 57 | 3.3 | Soft | 43 to 71 | 1,573 |
| Lowndes County | 54 | 3.2 | Soft | 41 to 110 | 305 |
| Butler County | 52 | 3 | Soft | 21 to 120 | 203 |
| Clarke County | 50 | 2.9 | Soft | 32 to 69 | 459 |
| Baldwin County | 49 | 2.9 | Soft | 23 to 512 | 3,134 |
| Greene County | 48 | 2.8 | Soft | 30 to 68 | 696 |
| Wilcox County | 48 | 2.8 | Soft | 33 to 62 | 650 |
| Hale County | 47 | 2.7 | Soft | 15 to 77 | 761 |
| Dallas County | 45 | 2.6 | Soft | 17 to 70 | 968 |
| Sumter County | 44 | 2.6 | Soft | 26 to 62 | 999 |
| Coffee County | 42 | 2.5 | Soft | 22 to 120 | 210 |
| Chilton County | 42 | 2.5 | Soft | 15 to 65 | 451 |
| Washington County | 39 | 2.3 | Soft | 8 to 52 | 335 |
| Houston County | 38 | 2.2 | Soft | 23 to 98 | 507 |
| Montgomery County | 37 | 2.2 | Soft | 17 to 69 | 922 |
| Elmore County | 37 | 2.2 | Soft | 12 to 53 | 1,003 |
| Lee County | 37 | 2.2 | Soft | 23 to 51 | 493 |
| Monroe County | 36 | 2.1 | Soft | 1 to 46 | 1,228 |
| Crenshaw County | 35 | 2 | Soft | 23 to 53 | 460 |
| Bullock County | 34 | 2 | Soft | 16 to 46 | 88 |
| Tuscaloosa County | 34 | 2 | Soft | 15 to 78 | 3,228 |
| Macon County | 33 | 1.9 | Soft | 22 to 49 | 305 |
| Geneva County | 32 | 1.9 | Soft | 24 to 62 | 289 |
| Pike County | 32 | 1.9 | Soft | 20 to 59 | 169 |
| Covington County | 29 | 1.7 | Soft | 20 to 48 | 549 |
| Pickens County | 28 | 1.6 | Soft | 11 to 57 | 1,020 |
| Conecuh County | 28 | 1.6 | Soft | 16 to 100 | 349 |
| Dale County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 18 to 42 | 532 |
| Barbour County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 19 to 41 | 387 |
| Chambers County | 25 | 1.5 | Soft | 19 to 32 | 74 |
| Perry County | 24 | 1.4 | Soft | 11 to 49 | 104 |
| Russell County | 23 | 1.3 | Soft | 19 to 27 | 394 |
| DeKalb County | 23 | 1.3 | Soft | 14 to 73 | 504 |
| Marion County | 21 | 1.2 | Soft | 12 to 30 | 750 |
| Henry County | 20 | 1.2 | Soft | 14 to 42 | 250 |
| Cullman County | 20 | 1.2 | Soft | 1 to 46 | 1,256 |
| Winston County | 19 | 1.1 | Soft | 14 to 34 | 723 |
| Fayette County | 18 | 1.1 | Soft | 8 to 79 | 347 |
| Clay County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 9 to 40 | 242 |
| Escambia County | 15 | 0.9 | Soft | 7 to 50 | 1,333 |
| Coosa County | 15 | 0.9 | Soft | 11 to 35 | 549 |
| Cleburne County | 14 | 0.8 | Soft | 11 to 20 | 474 |
| Autauga County | 12 | 0.7 | Soft | 7 to 34 | 151 |
| Tallapoosa County | 12 | 0.7 | Soft | 10 to 17 | 1,027 |
| Lamar County | 11 | 0.6 | Soft | 8 to 18 | 261 |
| Randolph County | 11 | 0.6 | Soft | 10 to 13 | 639 |
Source: Water Quality Portal (USGS, EPA and state agencies), waterqualitydata.us, retrieved 2026-09-19. 2,904,346 samples across 3,110 counties.
What this means for a household in Alabama
At 2.9 grains per gallon, a family of four would need a softener of about 16,000 grains to regenerate roughly weekly, using around 120 lb of salt a year. Size it for your own household.
65 of these counties include well samples, so the figures are a reasonable guide for private well water there. Municipal supplies in the same counties may be softer, because utilities often blend or treat.
Hardness follows geology rather than borders. Where a county sits on limestone or dolomite the water is hard; on granite, basalt or sandstone it is soft. That is why neighbouring counties in this table can differ by a factor of several.