Sioux Center is the one town in northwest Iowa where the water genuinely changed, the city said so publicly, and most people's equipment never caught up.
| Sioux Center at a glance | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Who supplies the water | Sioux Center Municipal Water Department, PWSID IA8486053, serving 8,231 people in EPA SDWIS against a 2024 Census city estimate of 8,675 |
| Where it comes from | Twelve active local alluvial wells at 38 to 49 feet, blended with water from the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System |
| Softened at the plant | No. The nineteen EPA SDWIS treatment records for IA8486053 list aeration, permanganate, sand and anthracite filtration, chloramines, gaseous chlorination, four-log virus treatment and blending. None carries a softening objective — and the city's own advice is about setting home softeners |
| Published hardness | The city stated on 27 April 2023: “Lab testing shows Sioux Center's current grains of hardness to be 23. Prior to adding Lewis & Clark water into our supply, the hardness was around 43 grains.” |
In a public notice headed “Softer Water Allows Sioux Center to Turn Down Softeners”, dated 27 April 2023, the Sioux Center Water Department wrote that lab testing showed the city's hardness at 23 grains, down from around 43 grains before Lewis & Clark water entered the supply. It went on to recommend “that customers adjust their softeners down to 25 grains of hardness”.
The state's own sampling backs it. A blended entry-point sample taken on 25 May 2023, labelled “Sioux Center wells, RWS #1 and L&C”, measured 412.8 mg/L as calcium carbonate — 24.1 grains per gallon, within a grain of the city's figure.
Here is what that means in practice. If your softener was programmed before 2023 and nobody has touched it since, it is regenerating for water that is roughly twice as hard as the water actually coming into the house. That is salt you are buying and not using, and regeneration cycles the resin does not need.
The blend is doing real work, and the underlying water has not changed. Sioux Center Well #17 tested at 981 mg/L as calcium carbonate in May 2015 and Well #16 at 920 mg/L in June 2012 — 57.4 and 53.8 grains per gallon, among the highest raw figures recorded anywhere in the state database. Dissolved solids at those wells were 1,549 and 1,600 mg/L against 783 mg/L at the blended entry point.
So Sioux Center is not a soft-water town. It is a very hard water town that imported enough regional supply to cut its hardness roughly in half, and 23 grains is still firmly in softener territory by any standard.
Sodium at the blended entry point measured 70.35 mg/L, with 51.5 mg/L at the treatment plant tap and 44.56 to 50.89 mg/L in the distribution system. One of the state's sampling addresses in town is even recorded as a “hard water faucet” — an unsoftened tap kept for exactly this kind of comparison.
Many houses here already own a softener. Often the job is a service and a correct setting rather than a new system, and we will tell you if that is the case. Every price is all-in: equipment, installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty.
Annual maintenance is $199 a year for a tank-RO home and $249 for a tankless-RO home. A full diagnostic service call is $199; a known-issue trip is $99 plus the part. We offer 0% financing, and $100 off for military and first responders. Ask for the written breakdown before you schedule, or start one through our instant quote.
Rural Sioux County homes get no Lewis & Clark blend at all. They are on the local groundwater at its full strength — the water that was reading 43 grains citywide before the regional connection, and 53 to 57 grains at individual wells. Our well water setup is a dual-tank system at $3,450, or $3,800 with tank RO, with UV disinfection at $700 and sediment pre-filtration at $500 when the readings call for them. We fit tank RO rather than tankless on a well, because high dissolved solids cost a tankless unit its pressure. Start with free well water testing.
We are licensed and insured, and our softeners are built from NSF/ANSI 44 certified components and our reverse osmosis systems are certified to NSF/ANSI 58. Installation is handled by licensed local plumbing professionals we vet, schedule and stand behind. Pricing is published and all-in, so the figure you read here is the figure on the paperwork. Distance and site conditions are the only things that can change it, and we tell you before you agree.
If your softener setting has not been looked at since 2023, it is almost certainly wrong, and wrong in the expensive direction. We come to you, measure hardness, iron and dissolved solids at your own kitchen sink, and leave you the readings and a written quote at no charge — including if the answer is that your existing unit just needs resetting. Book your free in-home water test.
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The City of Sioux Center stated on 27 April 2023 that lab testing showed the city's current hardness at 23 grains per gallon, down from around 43 grains before Lewis & Clark Regional water was blended into the supply. An Iowa DNR blended entry-point sample on 25 May 2023 measured 412.8 mg/L as calcium carbonate, which is 24.1 grains, confirming the figure.
The city itself recommends it. In its 27 April 2023 notice the Sioux Center Water Department recommended that customers adjust their softeners down to 25 grains of hardness. If your unit was programmed before the Lewis & Clark blend it is set for roughly twice the hardness now entering the house, which wastes salt and runs unnecessary regeneration cycles.
No. The nineteen EPA SDWIS treatment records for PWSID IA8486053 list aeration, permanganate, sand and anthracite filtration, chloramines, gaseous chlorination, four-log virus treatment and blending, and none carries a softening objective. The drop in hardness came from blending in Lewis & Clark Regional water, not from a softening process.
Very hard. Sioux Center Well #17 tested at 981 mg/L as calcium carbonate in May 2015 and Well #16 at 920 mg/L in June 2012, which is 57.4 and 53.8 grains per gallon — among the highest raw readings in the Iowa DNR database. Dissolved solids at those wells were 1,549 and 1,600 mg/L.
Almost certainly yes. Twenty-three grains is well inside the range where scale forms in a water heater and on fixtures; the blend halved the hardness rather than removing it. A Kind Water Co softener is $2,500, or $2,850 with reverse osmosis, all-in with equipment, professional installation, taxes and a lifetime parts warranty.
Every number on this page comes from a public record. Here is where to open each one yourself.
Whole-home water softening, filtration, and reverse-osmosis drinking water — professionally installed and built to last a lifetime.
Serving Marion, Cedar Rapids & surrounding Linn County communities
Kind Water Co is a d/b/a of Zero Cap Investments LLC · 2258 Bison St, Apt B, Marion, IA 52302
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