How to read your Texas water quality report for hardness

Last reviewed: October 22, 2026. Every community water system in Texas has to publish an annual drinking water quality report, called a Consumer Confidence Report (CCR). It's the most reliable free source for your home's hardness number. The catch is that hardness is often buried in a table most people skip. This guide shows where to look and how to turn the number into something you can use to size a softener.

1. Get the right report

When it comes out: Community water systems must deliver the report to customers by July 1 each year. It covers data from the previous calendar year (EPA, TCEQ).
Where to find it: Check your utility's website or water bill first. Systems serving more than 500 people must deliver a copy or a direct link to each bill-paying customer, and systems serving more than 100,000 people must also post the current report online (TCEQ).
Can't find it? Call your water supplier, or use EPA's CCR search tool. You can also look up your system by name or ID on TCEQ's Drinking Water Viewer.
Make sure it's your system. Many Texas homes are served by a MUD, a water supply corporation, or a private utility, not the city named in your mailing address. The system name on your water bill is the one to look up.

2. Know which table hardness lives in

A CCR's main tables cover regulated contaminants, compared to federal health limits. Hardness isn't one of them. EPA and TCEQ don't set a health limit for hardness, and it isn't on TCEQ's list of secondary (taste, odor and appearance) standards either (TCEQ secondary constituents).

So if your utility reports hardness, it's usually in a section titled something like "Secondary and Other Constituents Not Regulated" or "Other Water Quality Parameters." Look for a row labeled one of these:

Total Hardness or Hardness as CaCO₃ (most useful)
Hardness as Ca/Mg (the label used in some older Texas reports, such as a 2011 SAWS Anaqua Springs Ranch report)
Calcium and Magnesium as separate rows (you can calculate hardness from these; see step 4)

Some reports skip hardness entirely, because secondary constituents aren't required in the document. That same 2011 SAWS report says so directly: secondaries "are not required to be reported in this document" (SAWS). Many large utilities also publish a separate water quality FAQ or detailed analysis page with hardness on it.

3. Read the columns correctly

Column	What it means for hardness
Average or Level Detected	The number to use for softener sizing.
Range of Levels Detected	Low to high across samples or source wells. If your area blends sources, size for the high end.
Highest Level Detected	A conservative number to size with if no average is shown.
Units	Usually ppm or mg/L (the same thing). Sometimes grains per gallon (gpg).
MCL / MCLG	Federal health limit and goal. For hardness this is normally blank, NA or "0". That means no limit exists, not that the limit is zero. TCEQ tells utilities to show "N/A" when no MCL exists (TCEQ).
Collection Date	Secondary samples may be several years old. An old date means you should test at the tap too.

For reference, federal rules define the MCL as "the highest level of a contaminant that is allowed in drinking water," and the MCLG as the level "below which there is no known or expected risk to health" (40 CFR 141.153).

4. Convert to grains per gallon

Softeners are sized in grains. Divide mg/L (ppm) as CaCO₃ by 17.12 to get grains per gallon.

If your report lists only calcium and magnesium in mg/L, use the standard lab formula (Standard Methods 2340B):

Hardness (mg/L as CaCO₃) = 2.497 × calcium + 4.118 × magnesium

Worked example with made-up numbers: calcium 60 mg/L and magnesium 15 mg/L. 2.497 × 60 = 149.8, plus 4.118 × 15 = 61.8, gives 211.6 mg/L, or 211.6 ÷ 17.12 ≈ 12.4 gpg. That would be "very hard" on the USGS scale (over 180 mg/L) (USGS).

Only use the formula when calcium and magnesium are listed as the elements themselves. If a value already says "as CaCO₃," don't multiply it again.

5. Other numbers in the report worth a look

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS): Texas's secondary limit is 1,000 mg/L. TCEQ lists hardness among the effects of high TDS (TCEQ). High TDS is a common reason people add reverse osmosis at the kitchen sink.
Iron (limit 0.3 mg/L) and manganese (limit 0.05 mg/L): These cause staining and also affect softener sizing (TCEQ).
Disinfectant residual: Texas reports name the disinfectant, usually chlorine or chloramines (TCEQ). Chloramines matter when you pick a carbon filter, and some softener resins are sensitive to chlorine. Check the manufacturer's specs.
Source water: Every report names the lake, river or aquifer (EPA). Groundwater from limestone aquifers tends to be harder than surface water, and systems that switch or blend sources can change hardness through the year.

6. When to test instead

Test at your own tap if your report doesn't list hardness, if the hardness data is several years old, if the range is wide, or if you're on a private well (wells don't get a CCR at all). Inexpensive test strips give a ballpark figure, and a lab test gives you hardness, iron and TDS together.

Quick checklist

Find the system name on your water bill.
Get this year's CCR from the utility site, EPA's search tool, or TCEQ's Drinking Water Viewer.
Find the "secondary" or "other constituents" table, then the hardness (or calcium and magnesium) row.
Take the average, or the high end of the range, and divide by 17.12 for gpg.
Note iron, manganese, TDS and the disinfectant.
Plug the gpg into the sizing worksheet.

Want to compare with other cities first? See Texas water hardness by city.