Just a thought......A whole-house water softener would pay for itself long before 15 years and you'd have nicer showers while you're waiting. 22-23 grains is pretty ugly.

Whole-house softener isn't in the cards this time around. Wife hates the slippery water feel and for some reason the water doesn't feel all that bad compared to the 17gpg hardness in our old house in South Dakota (you felt coated in mineral after the shower). I set up an Autotrol unit there and ran potassium chloride -- made a huge difference in the dishwasher.

You are a perfect candidate for a Miele DW. Our current water is near neutral so we don't use it, but at a prior house in FL it worked great. The water there wasn't quite as bad you've got. How do they let it go from the treatment plant at that hardness? You must go through water heaters like crazy.

I have an older Miele with a built in water softener and have been extremely satisfied with the cleaning results.

I would be concerned with that hardness of H20 that your pipes are being damaged by the minerals. It might be less expensive in the long run to get some quotes on the whole house systems. Are you on a well with septic?

My water isn't extremely hard, but it isn't soft either. It also varies with what seems to be the time of season.
The softener in the newer Miele DW is self adjusting to your incoming water hardness so you don't get water that is too soft. No problems with mine and you don't need a lot of detergent. In fact the detergent cups seem smaller compared to other brands.

I have a Miele La Perla, the softener works wonderfully! We have 30-40 grains hardness herein Buckeye, Arizona (city water supply). Although I have a whole house softener, I run an unsoftened line to the kitchen for the dishwasher. I let the Miele softener decide what it needs to do with that hard water, and so far it's worked like a charm.

I've read posts on here from people who have run softened water to their dishwashers with poor results -- lots of etched glassware, etc. That will not happen if you give the Miele tap water and let it soften as needed. If you must run softened water to your dishwasher, throw in a 1/4 Tums tablet to give it the minimum hardness required to avoid etching your glasses.

You'll love your Miele, I wouldn't recommend getting anything else for someone with hard water issues.

You guys are always giving great info, but I think I should clarify something.

The La Perla has a system setting for when a whole-house water softener is used. The "External Softener" setting lets you set the hardness manually or use the default "auto" setting. IIRC, it's purpose, among other things, is to avoid water that is over softened resulting in glassware etching. (The LaPerla sensed my tap water as having a hardness of 5 and I don't use a water softener.)

BTW, I love my LaPerla. It cleans/drys better than my old Bosch DW and plastic containers don't flip over and fill with with dirty water as in the old Bosch.

sshrivastava....interesting idea about the tums. Where did that come from? Would enjoy learning more.

Impressed by the number of people posting here that are tuned into soft/hard characteristics of their water. In my experience, very few people are aware. And MANY people just fill up their machine's dispenser cups with detergent regardless. I have family members that do that with my machine when they're "helping". With my soft water that amounts to a huge multiple of the amount needed....and early etching also. Makes me wild.

Same behavior with washing machines. And then they complain about incomplete rinsing and gunk in their machines.