A couple of years ago, I was working on a residential boiler and I noticed some kind of qizmo wired to his incoming water line. I asked the homeowner what it was and he told me it was a water conditioner. He was always having trouble with his electric water heater elements burning out and scale buildup on his faucets and shower head. He had read about this new type of water conditioner, decided to buy it and said he hasn't had any trouble with mineral buildup since.
Last year, my house burned down and my wife and I bought another in town to refurbish. I remembered what the man had told me and since we have very hard water in this area, I told my wife I was going to install of couple of them in lieu of a traditional water softener that used salt.
We moved into our home this past Sept. and late last month, I finally got around to ordering and installing the water conditioners. It took me about an hour and wasn't hard at all. That evening, my wife and I both noticed the difference when we took our showers. The hair shampoo lathered better and we actually felt cleaner after taking the shower. Being old school, I prefer to wash the dishes in the sink instead of using the dishwasher and when I did, I noted the soap suds lasted much longer. My wife also told me that the clothes smelt fresher after being washed.
There are several companies that make such a product and the link below is to the Field Control model:
http://www.fieldcontrols.com/clearwavehd.php For those of you with hard water and not wanting to use a water conditioner that requires salt, this may be a viable option. They are not cheap as the two units I purchased cost over $600.00 total. But as they are maintenance free and environmentally friendly, I figure I'll come out ahead in the long run and they appear to be doing what I need them to do.