Hard water

The water in your part of the country might be hard or soft. It depends on the rocks rainwater passes through on its way to you. With soft water, you get a nice lather with soap. Not so with hard water...

Hard water makes scum and scale

Hard water won't easily form a lather with soap (non-soap detergents aren't affected)-you get a nasty scum instead. So to get a decent lather you need to use more soap. The problem is the "hardness minerals" in the hard water reacting with the soap. Hard water also forms furring or scale (moslty calcium carbonate) on the insides of pipes, boilers and kettles. Badly scaled-up pipes and boilers reduce the efficiency of heating systems, and may need to be replaced-all of which costs money. Scale can even eventually block pipes. Scale is also s bit of a thermal insulator…