Long Grove's own city government has put its hardness problem in writing. The city's 2025-26 state revolving fund environmental assessment records resident hardness complaints, then evaluates softening at the new plant and rejects it. Long Grove treats nothing today, so softening here stays a job for your own house.
| Long Grove water at a glance | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Utility | Long Grove Municipal Water Supply, city-owned, PWSID IA8251096, 838 people served (EPA SDWIS) |
| Water source | Two deep city wells in the Silurian dolomite aquifer, drilled in 1963 and 2013 (city SRF environmental assessment FS-82-26-DWSRF-010; Iowa DNR Source Water Protection Tracker, pwsid 8251096) |
| Treatment today | None. EPA SDWIS returns zero treatment records, and the city's SRF environmental assessment says water is pumped to the tower and "distributed across the city without prior treatment" |
| Published hardness | Not published. Long Grove reports no hardness figure, and the Iowa DNR sample portal holds no total hardness records for this system |
Most small towns never say anything on the record about hardness, because hardness is unregulated and nothing requires them to. Long Grove did. In the environmental assessment filed for its drinking water SRF project, reference FS-82-26-DWSRF-010, prepared by Veenstra & Kimm and taken to a public hearing on November 18, 2025, the city writes that November 2024 sampling of Wells 1 and 2 showed elevated iron, elevated ammonia and high turbidity, that "residents have also expressed concerns over hardness levels," and that hardness "significantly impacts the perceived quality and usability of the potable water."
That is the city's own language, not ours. The same document also states there are no known violations of National Primary Drinking Water Standards in the city's potable water, so this is a nuisance-water story rather than a safety one. It is simply the city confirming, on the record, that the white film on the shower door, the crust on the kettle and the orange tinge in the toilet tank are not just your house.
Long Grove is building a Vertical Pressure Filter plant to take out iron and ammonia and to add centralized disinfection. That is real progress, and it should help the rusty staining and the odd taste. It will not soften your water, and the assessment is explicit about why.
Alternative 2, the filter plant plus ion-exchange softening, was rejected because ion exchange "produces high chlorides that the wastewater treatment plant must address." Alternative 3, the filter plant plus reverse-osmosis softening, was "deemed too expensive." The city went with the option that leaves hardness in the water.
That same passage carries the line that matters most if you own a house here. The city notes that its wastewater plant "currently has chloride limits that it struggles to meet, likely due to a large number of residential softeners common across the city," and that choosing ion exchange at the plant "would require an intensive effort on the part of the city to convince residents to dispose of their softeners." In other words, Long Grove is officially a town where most houses already soften their own water.
None of this is unusual for the county. Not one community water system in Scott County softens its water, verified by querying the EPA SDWIS treatment table for softening across every PWSID beginning IA82. The only hits are golf courses, campgrounds and mobile-home parks running point-of-entry units. That is true from the Quad Cities metro on Mississippi River water all the way out to the small Silurian well systems like this one.
We are not going to give you a grains-per-gallon figure for Long Grove, because the city does not publish one and neither does the Iowa DNR. Hardness has no MCL, so it is not a required line item in a consumer confidence report, and the DNR sample portal returns no total hardness records for this system. Borrowing a neighboring town's number would be a guess dressed up as data, and the wells here are their own wells.
What we do instead takes about twenty minutes at your kitchen sink. A free in-home test gives you your actual hardness in grains per gallon, your iron, and a look at what a softener would need to handle at your address. If you want context on how the rest of the region reads, our Iowa water hardness by city page collects every published figure we can source.
Long Grove is city water, so the standard build is a metered water softener at $2,500, or a softener paired with a reverse osmosis drinking water system at $2,850. Larger homes can move up to the XL softener at $2,800, or $3,150 with RO. Every price is all-in: equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty.
If you only want better drinking and cooking water, a tank reverse osmosis system is $800 and the tankless version is $900. Given the iron and ammonia the city documented in Wells 1 and 2, dedicated iron and sulfur treatment is quoted after your free water test rather than off a price list, because the right equipment depends on your numbers. There is also a salt-free conditioning option at $3,050 for city water, which adds no salt or chloride to the drain at all.
Installation is handled by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule, and stand behind. Our softeners are built from NSF/ANSI 44 certified components and our reverse osmosis systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58. Kind Water Co is licensed and insured. Financing is available at 0%, and military members and first responders take $100 off.
Because the city has said in writing that residential softeners are common here, a lot of Long Grove work is not a first sale. It is a fifteen-year-old timer unit that regenerates on a clock whether the house used water or not, an undersized tank in a home that has added two bathrooms, or resin that has quietly stopped doing much. A properly sized metered system regenerates on actual water use, which means fewer regenerations and less salt going down the drain, which matters in a town whose wastewater plant is already watching its chloride limit.
Once installed, salt delivery and annual service run $199 a year for a home with a tank RO and $249 a year for a home with a tankless RO. Out-of-plan service is a $199 diagnostic visit, or $99 for a known-issue trip plus the part. If you want to see how that compares across the region, we break it down in our guide to water softener cost in Eastern Iowa.
Plenty of homes just outside the city limits are not on the municipal system at all. Those wells draw from the same Silurian dolomite, and nobody tests them but you. For private wells we install a dual-tank well water system at $3,450, or $3,800 with a tank RO, plus UV disinfection at $700 and sediment filtration at $500 where the water calls for it. Start with free well water testing and we will build the quote from your results.
No pressure and no obligation. We test your water at your sink, show you the numbers, and tell you plainly whether you need a new system, a right-sized replacement, or nothing at all. You can also get a ballpark first through our instant quote.
We also serve nearby Eldridge, Park View and Princeton, and the wider Quad Cities area.
No. Long Grove provides no treatment at all today. EPA SDWIS returns zero treatment records for PWSID IA8251096, and the city's SRF environmental assessment says water is pumped from the wells to the tower and distributed without prior treatment. No community water system in Scott County softens, so any softening happens at your house.
Besides the hardness complaints, the assessment reports that November 2024 sampling of Wells 1 and 2 showed elevated iron, elevated ammonia and high turbidity, which is what the new filter plant is being built to handle. The same document states there are no known violations of National Primary Drinking Water Standards, so this is a nuisance-water story rather than a safety one.
No. The Vertical Pressure Filter plant is designed to remove iron and ammonia and to add centralized disinfection. The city's assessment evaluated softening and rejected it: ion exchange was turned down over the chlorides its wastewater plant would have to handle, and reverse-osmosis softening was deemed too expensive. Hardness stays in the finished water.
Its assessment states the wastewater plant has chloride limits it struggles to meet, likely due to a large number of residential softeners common across the city. That is the city describing its own housing stock. It also means a right-sized metered softener, which regenerates on water use rather than a clock, sends less salt to the drain.
It depends on your own water, and a free in-home test settles it in about twenty minutes. A right-sized metered softener at $2,500 regenerates on actual water use rather than on a clock, so less salt reaches the drain in a town already watching its chloride limit. Salt-free conditioning for city water is $3,050 and adds no salt or chloride at all.
Every number on this page comes from a public record. Here is where to open each one yourself.
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