Typical modern hot water tank and a 10 year old heating pipe. In hard water both will heavily scale up.
The heating coil shown is now a solid column of heat wasting scale. Just 1.6mm (1/16”) of scale build-up in heating systems will cause a 12% loss in heating efficiency.
Look carefully at the first photo of the dishwasher heating element. This dishwasher has been running on softened water for all it's 16 years of working life and is still scale free with an Ensign water softener. Does your dishwasher look this scale free and efficient?
In the second photo, after 13 years of softened water, this heating tank is still scale free. It is running with as new efficiency and has the original heating element still working in it. We've left the harmless blue-green staining that you get with all copper piping intact to show the integrity of this photo.
Softened water descales. It will dissolve existing scale back into the water without breaking away in lumps. Speed of descaling is proportional to water temperature. From our experience I can tell you that a kettle @100°C will clear in about 14 days, whereas 12 years of scale in a hot water immersion tank @ 60°C takes about 6 months to dissolve. After this has happened they will stay scale free permanently.
Scale quickly gets forgotten as a thing of the past. What people tend to remember is the dramatic enhancement your new Ensign water softener has on the soaps, washing powders and shampoo etc.
Soaps and detergents dissolve very efficiently in softened water meaning that only 1/8th of the usual amount achieves the same results as before. In reality most people get used to using about ¼ of what they did before fitting an Ensign water softener and enjoy the extra lather.
Why not ask anyone who's used their regular amount of soap or detergent when visiting a soft water part of the UK if they've noticed the enhanced suds. Look at this Water Softener demonstration and see for yourself.