Hard Water in Colorado Springs: Do You Need a Softener?
Colorado Springs city water is soft. Colorado Springs Utilities publishes hardness of roughly 30 mg/L as calcium carbonate in its water quality report, which works out near 1.8 grains per gallon. Most homes on the city supply do not need a softener. Hard water in El Paso County is mainly a well water problem, and wells around Monument, Black Forest and Falcon can read many times higher.
Half the water softener quotes handed out in this city go to houses that do not need one. That is worth saying plainly before you spend a few thousand dollars on a problem you may not have.
Where does Colorado Springs water come from?
Most of it falls as snow. Colorado Springs Utilities collects from Pikes Peak watersheds, Rampart Reservoir and transmountain supplies, and snowmelt runs over granite that gives up very little calcium and magnesium on the way down. Limestone country produces hard water. Granite country does not.
That is why the published numbers look the way they do. In the utility’s own water quality summary, hardness as calcium carbonate sits in the high 20s to low 30s mg/L. Divide by 17.1 to convert to grains per gallon and you land near 1.8. The USGS scale calls anything under about 3.5 grains per gallon soft.
| Hardness in grains per gallon | Classification | Roughly who has it |
|---|---|---|
| Under 3.5 | Soft | Colorado Springs Utilities city supply |
| 3.5 to 7.0 | Moderately hard | Some outlying districts and blended supplies |
| 7.0 to 10.5 | Hard | Many Denver Basin wells |
| Over 10.5 | Very hard | Deeper wells with heavy mineral loads |
Hardness is not identical across every tap in the service area. Different treatment plants serve different sides of town, and outlying districts south and east of the city buy or treat water from other sources. A test at your own kitchen sink settles it.
So why does everyone say the water here is hard?
Three reasons, and two of them are real.
People move here from Denver, Pueblo, Phoenix or Texas and bring their expectations with them. They see white crust on a shower head and assume the same cause.
The second reason is honest confusion with the wider Front Range. Well water across eastern El Paso County comes out of the Denver Basin aquifers, and that water sits in sandstone for a very long time before anyone pumps it. Homes on wells around Monument, Black Forest, Falcon and Peyton frequently do have hard water, often with iron, manganese or sulfur alongside it. Hardness varies well to well in that country, which is why nobody can quote you a number for your address without a sample.
The third reason is scale that is genuinely there but comes from somewhere else. Soft water still leaves mineral deposits at a fixture that runs at 140 degrees, and it still carries silica. A crusty aerator on city water is usually a mix of trace minerals and old galvanized pipe shedding, which is a different fix.
What does hard water actually do to plumbing?
Where it exists, the damage is straightforward and slow.
Calcium drops out of solution as the water heats, so it lands first in the water heater. That sediment bed insulates the burner from the water above it, the steel runs hotter than it should, and the tank ages faster. On electric heaters the scale coats the elements directly and burns them out.
After that it works through the house. Dishwasher and washing machine valves gum up. Aerators and shower heads crust over. Soap refuses to lather, so people use more of it and laundry comes out stiff. Tankless heat exchangers scale up and start throwing flow errors.
None of that happens at 1.8 grains per gallon. All of it happens at 12.
How do you find out what you have?
Start with a test rather than a sales visit.
- Check your bill and find out who supplies you. City meter, a district meter or your own well changes everything that follows.
- If you are on the city supply, read the utility’s water quality report for the current year. That gives you the treated average before anyone comes to your door.
- On a well, get a laboratory test. Colorado State University Extension publishes guidance on which parameters private well owners should run and how often. Hardness, iron, manganese, pH, nitrate and bacteria are the usual starting set.
- Have a plumber measure hardness at your tap as well. The number at your fixture is what your appliances see.
- Only then price equipment, and size it on your reading and your household size.
When is a softener the right call?
On a well reading above about 7 grains per gallon, a softener pays for itself in appliance life alone. Above 10 it is close to mandatory if you want a water heater to reach its warranty.
On city water at under 2 grains per gallon, a softener is hard to justify. If your complaint is taste, chlorine smell or sediment, a carbon filter or a point of use reverse osmosis unit solves that for a fraction of the cost and does not add sodium or waste water regenerating.
Be careful with whole-house systems sold at the door on the strength of a colored test strip. Ask what the hardness reading was in grains per gallon, ask to see the meter, and ask what the unit will do about iron if you are on a well, because a standard softener has limits there.
One more thing worth knowing: if you do install a softener, keep the outside hose bibs on unsoftened water. Softened water on a garden is a waste of salt and does your soil no favors.
Next steps
If you want the number for your own house, our water softeners and filtration page covers the test, the sizing and what each option costs installed. We will show you the reading before anyone talks about equipment, and if the answer is that you do not need a softener, we will tell you that too.