The enemy here is corrosion, not limescale
The Gulf reflex is to fit a softener. Kuwait is the market where that reflex is wrong. Municipal supply is multi-stage-flash distillate blended with a small fraction of brackish groundwater, and the published figures put TDS at roughly 190–300 mg/L with total alkalinity of only 21–54 mg/L as CaCO₃ and a negative Langelier Saturation Index at every one of the five main pump stations — slightly aggressive water, not scale-forming water.
Carbonate hardness tracks alkalinity, so a steam room generator in Kuwait is far likelier to lose its pressure vessel and elements to corrosion than to fur up. We specify 316L wetted parts rather than 304, corrosion-resistant element sheaths, and we treat the building’s own storage tanks and older galvanised risers as the real contamination risk. We still sample the supply at the building before sizing the plant, because blending ratios differ from plant to plant.
Sources: ASHRAE Handbook—Fundamentals, Climatic Design Conditions (2021 ed.), Kuwait Intl, WMO 405820, with Doha (411700) and Dubai (411940) on the same basis; MEW/R-1 Regulations for Electrical Installations, Sixth Edition, and MEW/S-1 General Specification for Electrical Installation, 2014; Al-Rashed & Al-Senafy, ‘Quality of Potable Water in Kuwait’, American Journal of Environmental Sciences 6(3) 2010, 260–267, using Ministry of Electricity and Water data; Kuwait Conformity Assurance Scheme (KUCAS), Public Authority for Industry. Code editions and authority names are re-confirmed with the project consultant at design stage rather than copied forward from an earlier submittal.