This lovely customer had always had a water softener in previous houses. When she moved to sunny old Swanage she wanted a new one. Unfortunately she was sold one of these. 

Often called salt free water softeners (sic), we get so many calls from customers who have them but still get scale and do not under stand why. We cannot test them as they do not measurably take out and hardness. Customers still complain of all the problems they have had before. Scaled up shower heads, horrible kettles, dry skin, soap not lathering up.

The answer is simple a water softener. As soon as we connected it the customer could feel the difference and could measure it with the test kit we left.