How hard is the water here, really?

The published figures

• Horsham: 200 to 350 mg/L, averaging about 275 — roughly 16 grains per gallon, which the authority itself describes as very hard.

• Buckingham: 100 to 150 mg/L, or about 7 to 10 grains per gallon, all of it drawn from wells.

For reference, water is generally called hard above about 7 grains per gallon and very hard above 10.5. So Horsham is not marginally hard, it is at the upper end of the scale, and Buckingham sits right around the threshold.

If you are on a private well — which is most of the upper end of both counties, and more than half of Doylestown Township's roughly 6,000 households — then no utility publishes your number and the only way to know it is to test.

What hardness actually does

Hardness is dissolved calcium and magnesium. Neither is a health concern; both come out of solution when water is heated or left to evaporate, and that is where the cost is.

• Water heaters. Scale settles on the bottom of a tank or on the heat exchanger of a tankless unit, insulating the very surface meant to transfer heat. The unit works harder for the same hot water and the element or exchanger runs hotter than designed.

• Fixtures and appliances. Aerators, shower heads, dishwasher and washing machine valves collect deposits. Most of this is cosmetic or clearable; some of it is not.

• Soap. Hard water and soap make a residue rather than a lather, which is why very hard water feels like it needs more detergent. It usually does.

What is worth doing

The honest answer depends on your number, and it is worth knowing yours before anyone sells you anything.

1. Find out what you have. If you are on a public system, the authority publishes it. If you are on a well, test — and while you are testing, the same sample usually covers the other things worth knowing.

2. Flush the water heater on a schedule. The single cheapest thing on this list, and the one most often skipped. A tankless unit needs descaling rather than flushing, at an interval the manufacturer specifies.

3. Consider softening at the Horsham end of the range. At around 16 grains per gallon the arithmetic usually works. At Buckingham's 7 to 10 it is a preference rather than an obvious economic case.

Separate from hardness: two things worth knowing about local water

Lead service lines

Aqua Pennsylvania has replaced roughly 3,000 lead and galvanized service lines since 2024, about 470 of them in Bucks County, at no cost to the customer, under federal and state requirements. Around 2,100 test holes were planned in Bristol from mid-June 2026. If you are an Aqua customer in an older property it is worth knowing where your line stands.

PFAS around the former military sites

Firefighting foam used at the former Naval Air Warfare Center in Warminster, the former Naval Air Station Willow Grove and the Horsham Air Guard Station put PFOA and PFOS into local groundwater, detected from 2014. Horsham tested all fourteen of its wells; wells 26 and 40 were shut immediately, wells 10, 17 and 21 after the 2016 health advisory, and anion-exchange treatment was authorised in January 2021.

This is a separate issue from hardness and a softener does not address it. It is included here because it is the question people in Warminster, Warrington and Horsham are usually actually asking when they start looking into their water.