I love my Rowenta. I did have one I hated, it leaked and then had a spectacular steam up and "pop" it died (at 3 years old). But I had a spare I'd bought used (for $1.00) and had to clean up of brown gunk. I've now been using it over 5 years with no issues. Mine was made in Germany. I think there are more problems with the "made in China" ones. I use bottled spring water, not tap water as we are on a well and our water has a lot of iron. We have a softener, but that adds salt so I don't know if that would be good either. I could get out the brita pitcher and filter my own water for it, hadn't thought of that.