Water hardness in West Virginia
West Virginia has a median ambient water hardness of 77 mg/L, which is 4.5 grains per gallon and classes as moderately hard. That is the middle of 12,899 samples across 55 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 West Virginia
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brooke County | 323 | 18.9 | Very hard | 230 to 360 | 35 |
| Berkeley County | 299 | 17.5 | Very hard | 186 to 347 | 195 |
| Jefferson County | 251 | 14.7 | Very hard | 136 to 333 | 567 |
| Harrison County | 240 | 14 | Very hard | 150 to 400 | 131 |
| Ohio County | 150 | 8.8 | Hard | 120 to 210 | 65 |
| Monongalia County | 149 | 8.7 | Hard | 82 to 280 | 199 |
| Marshall County | 147 | 8.6 | Hard | 101 to 209 | 292 |
| Mason County | 140 | 8.2 | Hard | 100 to 200 | 169 |
| McDowell County | 130 | 7.6 | Hard | 84 to 180 | 404 |
| Mingo County | 120 | 7 | Moderately hard | 70 to 189 | 352 |
| Hampshire County | 116 | 6.8 | Moderately hard | 64 to 140 | 127 |
| Morgan County | 112 | 6.5 | Moderately hard | 81 to 143 | 157 |
| Jackson County | 110 | 6.4 | Moderately hard | 78 to 160 | 186 |
| Logan County | 110 | 6.4 | Moderately hard | 78 to 180 | 314 |
| Mineral County | 110 | 6.4 | Moderately hard | 84 to 170 | 205 |
| Hancock County | 104 | 6.1 | Moderately hard | 87 to 130 | 434 |
| Grant County | 95 | 5.5 | Moderately hard | 57 to 160 | 155 |
| Boone County | 92 | 5.4 | Moderately hard | 47 to 140 | 512 |
| Mercer County | 87 | 5.1 | Moderately hard | 37 to 130 | 87 |
| Taylor County | 86 | 5 | Moderately hard | 64 to 140 | 32 |
| Raleigh County | 85 | 5 | Moderately hard | 45 to 142 | 437 |
| Pendleton County | 83 | 4.8 | Moderately hard | 34 to 105 | 64 |
| Kanawha County | 81 | 4.7 | Moderately hard | 41 to 120 | 532 |
| Lincoln County | 77 | 4.5 | Moderately hard | 44 to 120 | 454 |
| Roane County | 77 | 4.5 | Moderately hard | 46 to 130 | 71 |
| Hardy County | 76 | 4.4 | Moderately hard | 44 to 100 | 117 |
| Marion County | 75 | 4.4 | Moderately hard | 38 to 160 | 233 |
| Cabell County | 73 | 4.3 | Moderately hard | 46 to 130 | 263 |
| Putnam County | 70 | 4.1 | Moderately hard | 54 to 98 | 692 |
| Monroe County | 69 | 4 | Moderately hard | 38 to 150 | 86 |
| Pleasants County | 69 | 4 | Moderately hard | 52 to 120 | 27 |
| Wyoming County | 64 | 3.7 | Moderately hard | 31 to 100 | 640 |
| Lewis County | 63 | 3.7 | Moderately hard | 48 to 110 | 132 |
| Wetzel County | 63 | 3.7 | Moderately hard | 50 to 87 | 51 |
| Doddridge County | 62 | 3.6 | Moderately hard | 45 to 89 | 48 |
| Tyler County | 61 | 3.6 | Moderately hard | 48 to 100 | 92 |
| Ritchie County | 57 | 3.3 | Soft | 48 to 65 | 116 |
| Summers County | 56 | 3.3 | Soft | 38 to 84 | 155 |
| Wayne County | 55 | 3.2 | Soft | 30 to 100 | 379 |
| Fayette County | 53 | 3.1 | Soft | 35 to 89 | 262 |
| Preston County | 52 | 3 | Soft | 26 to 110 | 223 |
| Wood County | 50 | 2.9 | Soft | 36 to 150 | 54 |
| Clay County | 48 | 2.8 | Soft | 25 to 80 | 109 |
| Gilmer County | 48 | 2.8 | Soft | 36 to 66 | 103 |
| Wirt County | 46 | 2.7 | Soft | 39 to 51 | 188 |
| Greenbrier County | 45 | 2.6 | Soft | 23 to 96 | 361 |
| Calhoun County | 43 | 2.5 | Soft | 22 to 60 | 60 |
| Braxton County | 35 | 2 | Soft | 16 to 90 | 259 |
| Tucker County | 35 | 2 | Soft | 22 to 61 | 374 |
| Upshur County | 31 | 1.8 | Soft | 11 to 69 | 90 |
| Barbour County | 30 | 1.8 | Soft | 24 to 44 | 103 |
| Randolph County | 28 | 1.6 | Soft | 13 to 52 | 237 |
| Pocahontas County | 24 | 1.4 | Soft | 13 to 73 | 206 |
| Nicholas County | 23 | 1.3 | Soft | 12 to 53 | 753 |
| Webster County | 16 | 0.9 | Soft | 11 to 30 | 310 |
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 West Virginia
At 4.5 grains per gallon, a family of four would need a softener of about 16,000 grains to regenerate roughly weekly, using around 182 lb of salt a year. Size it for your own household.
55 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.