WaterProfile Local

Utilities / Michigan

Lansing, MI water hardness

Lansing Board of Water & Light publishes a hardness of 100 mg/L for its system, in its Lansing Board of Water & Light 2024 Annual Water Quality Report. On the USGS scale that is moderately hard water.

Soft Moderate Hard Very hard 0 60 120 180 500+ 100 mg/L Lansing, MI sits in the moderately hard band mg/L as CaCO₃. Bands drawn equal width, so the axis is not linear.
Lansing Board of Water & Light published 100 mg/L, with a published range of 89 to 120 mg/L shown as the bar. The plotted point is the published figure. Classification bands from the USGS Water Science School.

The published figure, exactly as it appears

This is the hardness line transcribed from the source, with nothing added:

Typical Analysis of Conditioned Water — Parameter | Units | Your Water Results | Typical Concentration Range […] Hardness* (as CaCO3) PPM 100 89-120. *These parameters will typically be at the high end of the range during high demand periods in the summer months of June, July and August.

Lansing Board of Water & Light, Lansing Board of Water & Light 2024 Annual Water Quality Report

Units as published: PPM (as CaCO3). What kind of figure it is: a single value. Retrieved 2026-10-27.

Lansing hardness in mg/L and grains per gallon

Water-quality reports use mg/L (identical to ppm). Softener instructions and plumbing specifications use grains per gallon. Both are below. Where a figure is our arithmetic rather than the utility's own number, it says so.

Figuremg/L (ppm)Grains per gallonWhose number
Published figure1005.8mg/L published, gpg is our conversion
Low end of published range895.2mg/L published, gpg is our conversion
High end of published range1207mg/L published, gpg is our conversion
Plotted on the scale above1005.8published figure (the utility does not call it an average); the gpg here is our conversion at 17.1, so it can differ slightly from a utility’s own rounded gpg figure

The conversion, both ways: gpg = mg/L ÷ 17.1 and mg/L = gpg × 17.1. Worked for this system: 100 ÷ 17.1 = 5.8 gpg. The converter does °dH and °f as well, and why the factor is 17.1 explains where the number comes from.

What this figure does not tell you

Service area and source water

UtilityLansing Board of Water & Light
Service area as publishedWater from the Lansing Board of Water & Light’s two water conditioning plants (Dye and Wise), serving the Lansing community and BWL’s service territory. The report says it serves 166,000 people plus a wholesale population of 40,450 and does not name the wholesale communities; this page does not describe them.
Source water124 groundwater wells about 400 feet deep in the Saginaw Aquifer; the water is softened at BWL’s conditioning plants, which the report says remove about 80 percent of the hardness.

Provenance of every number on this page

Source documentLansing Board of Water & Light 2024 Annual Water Quality Report
Source URLhttps://lbwl.com/documents/2024-water-quality-report
Published byLansing Board of Water & Light (BWL)
Report year2024
Year noteIssued April 1, 2025; testing covers January 1 – December 31, 2024, with some results older, as the report notes. BWL’s 2025 report is listed on lbwl.com but could not be fetched on the retrieval date; it is listed under blocked sources and not used.
Retrieved2026-10-27
Classification bandsUSGS Water Science School, retrieved 2026-10-16

Notes the report forces on this page

If you are sizing a softener for Lansing water

At 5.8 gpg, the sizing arithmetic starts from your household's water use, not from the hardness alone. The calculator below is pre-filled with this system's figure and every other input is an editable assumption.

Whether a softener is worth installing at this hardness is a judgement, not arithmetic, and it is not one this site makes for you. Nothing here has been tested by the author.

Where Lansing sits against other verified systems

Soft Soft 0–60
Moderately hard Moderate 61–120
Hard Hard 121–180
Very hard Very hard 181+
  1. Portland, OR 9 mg/L 0.5 gpg Soft
  2. Boston, MA 16 mg/L 1 gpg Soft
  3. Manchester, NH 17.9 mg/L 1 gpg Soft
  4. Seattle, WA 19.1 mg/L 1.1 gpg Soft
  5. Raleigh, NC 25 mg/L 1.47 gpg Soft
  6. New York, NY 32 mg/L 2 gpg Soft
  7. Charlotte, NC 32 mg/L 1.9 gpg Soft
  8. Memphis, TN 46 mg/L 2.7 gpg Soft
  9. Norfolk, VA 48 mg/L 2.8 gpg Soft
  10. Anchorage, AK 56 mg/L 3.3 gpg Soft
  11. Virginia Beach, VA 56 mg/L 3.3 gpg Soft
  12. Oakland, CA 68.4 mg/L 4 gpg Moderately hard
  13. Nashville, TN 77.3 mg/L 4.5 gpg Moderately hard
  14. Sacramento, CA 83 mg/L 4.9 gpg Moderately hard
  15. Fresno, CA 89.3 mg/L 5.2 gpg Moderately hard
  16. Saint Paul, MN 90 mg/L 5 gpg Moderately hard
  17. Austin, TX 93 mg/L 5.4 gpg Moderately hard
  18. Minneapolis, MN 94 mg/L 5.5 gpg Moderately hard
  19. Washington, DC 95 mg/L 5.6 gpg Moderately hard
  20. Baltimore, MD 97.5 mg/L 5.7 gpg Moderately hard
  21. Birmingham, AL 98 mg/L 5.7 gpg Moderately hard
  22. Kansas City, MO 100 mg/L 5.8 gpg Moderately hard
  23. Lansing, MI 100 mg/L 5.8 gpg Moderately hard
  24. Denver, CO 105 mg/L 6.1 gpg Moderately hard
  25. Detroit, MI 107 mg/L 6.3 gpg Moderately hard
  26. Aurora, CO 113 mg/L 6.6 gpg Moderately hard
  27. Tulsa, OK 114.5 mg/L 6.7 gpg Moderately hard
  28. Louisville, KY 115 mg/L 6.7 gpg Moderately hard
  29. Columbus, OH 120 mg/L 7 gpg Moderately hard
  30. Cleveland, OH 120 mg/L 7 gpg Moderately hard
  31. Philadelphia, PA 125 mg/L 7.3 gpg Hard
  32. Ann Arbor, MI 126 mg/L 7.4 gpg Hard
  33. Cincinnati, OH 133 mg/L 7.8 gpg Hard
  34. Chicago, IL 134.5 mg/L 7.9 gpg Hard
  35. Houston, TX 135.5 mg/L 7.9 gpg Hard
  36. Milwaukee, WI 137 mg/L 8.01 gpg Hard
  37. St. Louis, MO 138 mg/L 8.1 gpg Hard
  38. Grand Rapids, MI 142 mg/L 8.3 gpg Hard
  39. Fort Worth, TX 145 mg/L 8.5 gpg Hard
  40. Spokane, WA 159 mg/L 9.3 gpg Hard
  41. Honolulu, HI 162.5 mg/L 9.5 gpg Hard
  42. Wichita, KS 170 mg/L 9.9 gpg Hard
  43. Omaha, NE 170 mg/L 10 gpg Hard
  44. Los Angeles, CA 192 mg/L 11.2 gpg Very hard
  45. Lincoln, NE 192 mg/L 11.2 gpg Very hard
  46. Riverside, CA 197 mg/L 12 gpg Very hard
  47. Tampa, FL 220 mg/L 12.9 gpg Very hard
  48. Phoenix, AZ 237 mg/L 13.9 gpg Very hard
  49. Mesa, AZ 239.4 mg/L 14 gpg Very hard
  50. Round Rock, TX 258 mg/L 15.1 gpg Very hard
  51. Pflugerville, TX 267 mg/L 15.6 gpg Very hard
  52. San Diego, CA 276 mg/L 16 gpg Very hard
  53. Las Vegas, NV 280 mg/L 16 gpg Very hard
  54. Chandler, AZ 282.2 mg/L 16.5 gpg Very hard
  55. Kyle, TX 285 mg/L 16.7 gpg Very hard
  56. San Antonio, TX 299.3 mg/L 17.5 gpg Very hard
  57. Anaheim, CA 300 mg/L 18 gpg Very hard
  58. Henderson, NV 304 mg/L 18 gpg Very hard
  59. Indianapolis, IN 317 mg/L 19 gpg Very hard
  60. Madison, WI 324.9 mg/L 19 gpg Very hard
  61. Scottsdale, AZ 352.5 mg/L 20.6 gpg Very hard
  62. Salt Lake City, UT 353.5 mg/L 20.7 gpg Very hard

mg/L as calcium carbonate. Each classification band is drawn the same width, so the axis is not linear in mg/L.

Lansing, MI is the highlighted row. Every other system on this chart has its own page with its own published figure and report date. Grains per gallon are the utility's own figure where it published one, and our conversion at 17.1 mg/L per grain where it did not.

Systems with similar published hardness

All 62 verified systems   How to find hardness in your own utility's report   If you are on a well instead