Hard water leaves deposits on your fixtures and in your piping which increases your engery costs up to 60-70% and shortens your appliance life.
Mineral scaling not only deteriorates your plumbing fixtures and water using appliances; it can decrease their effiency.
As little as 1/8" of hardness scale on a water heater element will reduce heating efficiency by 20%. In fact, a recent study proved heating hard water with an electric or gas water heater consumes 21-29% more energy than if one were using soft water.