I have had 2 Rowentas, both have gone on to iron heaven after heavy leaking. I put water in them and left it in. I had bought both second hand. I tend to buy all my irons at thrift shops for my studio. I have a black and decker for my work clothes, and have been happy with it,however, after much reading on here, I have not put water in it, a mister sits beside it. I happen to find a nice teflon base iron about a year ago at a thrift shop that I currently am using for my sewing. It to has a mister sitting beside it and I have been very happy so far. I've done a lot of reading on here about many that do not put water in their irons, I figure since my two Rowentas that died, died with leaking issues, I figure there may be something to not adding water to an iron and I actually like the mister better.

I really like this iron too. I ordered mine from Amazon a couple years ago, leave it plugged in (it has auto shut-off) and use tap water. I especially like the point of the iron, it is a little narrower than other irons I've had. Well worth the extra steam and few dollars more than I've paid before .

Way back when quilt magazines had a lot of great articles there was one called Ironing 101. It explained why so many irons spit and sputter yucky water. The main reason was filling the iron with the steam on, a big no no. And having the steam turned on when bringing the iron up to temp. With the new irons having auto off and on the steam dial has to be off until you are ready to use it and the iron has to be at stream temp before you turn it on. You can't leave the steam turned on with auto shut off while it cools down and heats back up.