Garland Water Is Very Hard — Here's What It Costs You Each Year

Why Is Garland Water So Hard?

Garland sits at 11.7 GPG (200 ppm), which puts it squarely in the “very hard” category. That’s not a surprise if you understand where the water comes from and what it travels through before it reaches your tap.

The short version: Garland’s water is surface water, drawn from area lakes and reservoirs. And here’s the thing about surface water in North Texas. It doesn’t start out hard. Rain falling on the region is naturally soft, nearly distilled. The hardness comes later, from the ground the water touches on its way to the lake and while it sits there.

North Texas sits on the Edwards Plateau and the surrounding Cretaceous-age limestone formations. That limestone is essentially compressed ancient sea life, full of calcium carbonate. When rainwater, which is slightly acidic from dissolved carbon dioxide, hits that limestone, it dissolves the rock. Calcium and magnesium ions leach right into the water. The longer the water sits in a reservoir, the more mineral content it picks up. Garland’s lakes are no exception. They collect runoff that has already percolated through and over this limestone-rich terrain, so by the time the water is treated and piped to your house, it’s carrying a heavy load of dissolved calcium and magnesium.

There’s another factor worth mentioning. Evaporation concentrates hardness. In a hot Texas summer, reservoir levels drop and the water that remains holds a higher mineral concentration. That’s why hardness readings can creep up during drought years and ease off after heavy rains. It’s not static. The number shifts with the seasons and the lake levels.

So when you see scale building on your faucets or your showerhead clogging up, you’re not imagining it. That’s the limestone geology of North Texas, dissolved and delivered to your door. The water utility doesn’t remove hardness because it’s not required to. The EPA classifies hardness as an aesthetic issue, not a health hazard. It falls under Secondary Maximum Contaminant Levels, which are guidelines, not enforceable limits. So the calcium and magnesium stay in the water all the way to your glass.

How Garland Compares to Nearby Cities

Garland’s 11.7 GPG reading puts it on the higher end for the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, but it’s not an outlier. The whole region shares similar geology, so the water story is broadly the same from city to city. The differences come down to which specific reservoir each city draws from and how the local treatment process handles the raw water.

Cities that pull from the same chain of North Texas reservoirs, like those fed by the Elm Fork of the Trinity River, tend to see comparable hardness numbers. The water has passed through the same limestone country, so it arrives with a similar mineral load. That said, treatment practices vary. Some utilities blend water from multiple sources, which can dilute hardness. Others add lime or other chemicals during treatment, and that process can actually shift the final hardness reading one way or another.

The practical reality for Garland residents is this: your water is very hard, and your neighbors to the west and south are dealing with the same general problem, even if their exact numbers differ by a few grains per gallon. If you’ve got friends in Dallas or Richardson complaining about scale on their coffee pots, they’re not exaggerating. They’re just living with a slightly different dose of the same limestone water.

What matters for you is the number on your own water report. At 11.7 GPG, you’re well past the 7 GPG threshold the USGS uses to define hard water, and you’re past the 10.5 GPG mark that triggers the “very hard” label. According to the Water Quality Association, hard water at this level carries real costs. Their industry estimate points to higher energy bills, faster appliance wear, and increased cleaning product use. The exact dollar figure scales with your actual hardness, and you can calculate it for your household on this page. But the direction is clear. At 11.7 GPG, you’re paying for that limestone geology every time you heat water, run a load of laundry, or scrub soap scum off the shower tile.

How does Garland stack up against the rest of Texas? It's very hard at 11.7 GPG — Midland, The Woodlands, and College Station sit nearby with different numbers. See the full hardest-water ranking for context.

See where Garland sits on the Texas water hardness map →

Want the broader explainer on what hardness actually is and how it behaves? Read hard water vs. soft water, explained.